aj)
THE GODS IN GREECE
AHY.
STUDIES OF THE GODS IN GREECE
AT CERTAIN SANCTUARIES
RECENTLY EXCAVATED
BEING EIGHT LECTURES GIVEN IN
1890 AT THE LOWELL INSTITUTE
BY LOUIS DYER, B.A. OXON.
LATE ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Better stand upon the fragments of antiquity and look about ns.
\\. S. LANUOR.
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
I 891
All rights reserved
COPYRIGHT
1891
BY
LOUIS DYER
TO
DEMETRIOS BIKELAS
PLANS
PAGE
Plan of the Eleusinian precinct from Proceedings of R. I. B. A.
to face page 198
Outline-sketch of the ground-plan of the Hall of Ictinus . . 202
Plan of the temple at Old Paphos from the J. H. S. to face page 310
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Latter-day paganism Greek sanctuaries Powers of Greek gods
Roman organisation The kingdom of Earth The Roman order
Greek individualism Greek religious thinkers Anomalies of
Greek religion Apollo at Delphi Parnassus Pater, Mannhardt,
and Preller Sanctions of Apollo s power Apollo s temple at
Delphi Delphian worship The coming of Apollo . Pages 1-36
APPENDIX I The deification of Roman emperors . . 37 45
II
DEMETER AT ELEUSIS AND CN1DUS
The home goddess of grain Two Homeric otherworlds The goddess
of enough and to spare The hallowed fruits of Demeter The
Homeric Hymn to Demeter The wedlock of Persephone The
Iliad and the Odyssean stories The Eleusinian legend of Demeter
Interlopers in the story Celeus and Demophoon Woman s
love for woman Demeter s love for Persephone Demeter s rules
for right living Demeter of Cnidus .... 46-74
viii CONTENTS
III
DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA
The crazed god of Homer Contradictions of Dionysus Probations of
Athenian Dionysus Thracian birth-marks of Dionysus Asiatic
Thracians Brumalia and Rosalia Modern May-day festivals
The angel of the darker drink Elements of wine, fire, water, gold
Dionysus- Silenus the water man Bassarids, Satyrs, Corybantes,
Curetes The savage Pan or Aegipan Dionysus Omestes Dionysus
and the Muses The Icarian legend Icarius entertains the god
The shepherds slay Icarius Legends parallel to Icarian story
Winter festivals on Parnassus Susarion and Thespis at Icaria
First tragedies at Icaria Pages 75-117
APPENDIX II Dionysus Eleuthereus .... 118-120
IV
DIONYSUS AT ATHENS
Epimenides of Crete The Pisistratidae and Dionysus Onomacritus and
Orphic myth-making Epimenides, Pisistratus, and Onomacritus
Reformed Athenian festivals The people s faith in Dionysus The
greater Dionysia The Bacchanals of Euripides Messianic vision
of Euripides Analysis of the introduction Entrance-song of the
Bacchanals Central acts and conclusion First great act The pro
bation of Pentheus Pentheus is deaf to reason The second great act
The sin of Pentheus Captive good attending captain ill The
perdition of Pentheus Cadmus cures Agave s madness 121-163
APPENDIX III Second birth of Dionysus his eastern affinities 163-173
V
THE GODS AT ELEUSIS
The coming of Dionysus to Eleusis The all -welcoming Demeter
Xenophanes and Heraclitus The holy silence of Eleusis Dionysus
an enhancement of Demeter The pitiless huntsman Zagreus
CONTENTS ix
Description of Eleusis The only church of antiquity Eleusis
fortified in early days The present condition of Eleusis The
Plutonian precinct The Hall of Initiation Halls of Pisistratus,
Cimon, Ictinus Cyclopean traces Roman restorations The
Hall of Ictinus The portion of Hades Greater and Lesser
Mysteries The Greater Mysteries Yearly procession of the Mystae
The Frogs of Aristophanes The measure led by the Fates
Stations of the yearly pilgrimage . . . . Pages 174-218
VI
AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS
The god Aesculapius from the north Hippocrates and Democedes
The Coan sanctuary The medicine of Homeric days The debt
of Democedes to Homer The schooling of Aesculapius Early
history of Greek medicine Mind and body Harmony of religion
and science Aesculapius a friend of man The son of Apollo
The Hieron of Epidaurus Finding of the infant god A precinct
of Aesculapius The statue of ivory and gold The Tholos of
Polycletus The painting of Pausias Apollonius the intercessor
219-256
APPENDIX IV Apollonius of Tyana .... 257-266
APPENDIX V The status of modern Greek doctors . . 267-269
VII
APHRODITE AT PAPHOS
Aphrodite at Greek sanctuaries - Eastern characteristics Three
regions of Cyprus Meeting ground of East and West No
Cypriote nationality Phoenicians in Cyprus Lack of Greek
monuments Agapenor at Paphos and in Arcadia Aphrodite
always Paphian From Limassol to Paphos Cinyras of Paphos
The ubiquity of Cinyras The temple on the hill Aphrodite s
birth at Paphos The Greek Aphrodite The Roman and Assyrian
goddess Aphrodite and Demeter , 270-304
x CONTENTS
APPENDIX VI The temple at Old Paphos . . Pages 305-314
APPENDIX VII Aphrodite of the Greeks, Hittites, and
Phoenicians 3 : 5-3 2 3
APPENDIX VIII The Olympus and the Bocarus in Cyprus
Hettore Podocatharo and John
Meursius 3 2 4 354
VIII
APOLLO AT DELOS
Delian nativity of Apollo and Artemis Delos a wandering island
The consecration of Rhenea The exile of the Delians Archi-
lochus the poet of the Aegean Apollo a King Arthur of the Greeks
Apollo and Cyrene Self-discipline of Apollo The lonians at
Delos Vicissitudes of Delian festivals From Athens to Delos
The procession of Nicias The earliest Delian festival The temple
and image of Leto The Cynthian cave -temple Latter-day
worshippers at Delos The inheritance of Delos . . 355 -390
APPENDIX IX The Cyclades and Sporades . . . 391-398
APPENDIX X The worship of Aphrodite and of strange
gods at Delos 399-43
APPENDIX XI Photographs referred to for illustrations . 404-413
INDICES 414-457
PREFACE
ADEQUATELY to thank all whose help has been
lavished upon tJie preparation of these pages is not
possible. Although I can give no catalogue of the
names of benefactors, my gratitude is sincere ; and
this expression of it will, I Jiope, reach them in Greece,
in France, in Italy, in England, and in America. It
is but fair, however, to say that constant criticism and
suggestion from my wife helped the present work to
its shape, and I cannot silence the particular expres
sion of my thanks to Professor Middleton of King s
College, Cambridge, and Professor Ker of University
College, London, for invaluable aid given most un
grudgingly during the final revision.
Originally prepared as lectures for the Lowell
Institute, the eight chapters here given are printed
xii PREFACE
with corrections and notes, the fruit of a years
deliberation. As lectures they were repeated before
various Universities, Colleges, and Societies in various
parts of the United States. A lecture on the Cyclades,
given before Columbia University, forms the basis of
one of the Appendices which, although some of them
are unavoidably technical, have seemed necessary to the
more or less connected presentation of Greek religious
thought here attempted.
LOUIS DYER
SUNBURY LODGE,
OXFORD, April 1891.
I
INTRODUCTION
I DO not mean to attempt an account of all the Greek
gods ; eight studies would be insufficient, even if my investi
gations had already carried me over the whole ground,
which is a vast one. I propose in the first place to say
what I can of Demeter and Persephone, the two great
goddesses of Eleusis in Attica. Here it will be necessary to
consider excavations in Asia Minor made some years ago
by Sir Charles Newton, 1 as well as the now practically
completed diggings of the Greek Archaeological Society at
Eleusis. 2 In the second place, the god Dionysus also
worshipped at Eleusis will be considered, and his early
cult in Attica will receive illustration from recent excava
tions made by the American School of Athens. 3 The
1 A History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus, Branchidae. By
C. T. N., assisted by R. P. Pullan. London, 1862, folio and 8vo.
2 See the various publications of the Greek Archaeological Society,
particularly the plan, by Dr. Dorpfeld, of the Eleusinian Temple in the
Praktika of 1885, and ibid. Dr. Philios s description, as well as his subse
quent reports on inscriptions and discoveries at Eleusis. Dr. Dorpfeld has
kindly allowed a reproduction of his plan to appear below in the chapter
on "The Gods at Eleusis," p. 202.
3 See the Seventh Annual Report of the American School at Athens in
the American Journal of Archaeology for 1889, and cf. the Nation of
22d March 1888.
B
I
2 INTRODUCTION i
third topic will be Aesculapius and his worship, more par
ticularly at Athens and at Epidaurus, as known through
excavations in both places. 1 Fourthly, a consideration of
Aphrodite and her worship at Old Paphos will occupy the
seventh of my chapters, which will to a large extent be
devoted to the problems which have been raised by the
recent excavations of the British School at Couclia in
Cyprus. 2 My eighth and last chapter will be given to the
holy island of Delos, and to Delian Apollo. The French
School of Athens, chiefly under the able direction of
M. Homolle, has uncovered and discovered of late years
all manner of facts about Delos and Delian Apollo; 3 and
with these I shall end my studies of five of the greater
gods of Greece as worshipped in their recently discovered
sanctuaries.
As there are shrines of healing and sanctuaries of especial
salvation dedicated to immemorial worship by the medieval
world of Christendom, so also in the Hellenic world (much
larger, alas ! than modern Greece) there were places about
which lingered through many centuries a dread and most
religious sanctity, a helpful significance. Of such spots
in Greece, in Cyprus, in Asia Minor, and of the gods
whose presence and whose help was sought in those
holy places, I am to speak. I am to speak of several
sites lately investigated where the beautiful and enno
bling religion, first of Greece, and then through Greece
1 Paul Girard, L AscUpieion d Athenes, d aprh de recentes dtcouvertes ,
Paris, 1881. For discoveries at Epidaurus see in the publications of the
Greek Archaeological Society various reports by M. Kabbadias.
2 See the Journal of Hellenic Studies for 1889.
3 See Professor Jebb s article "Delos" in the first number of the
Journal of Hellenic Studies also M. J. Albert Lebegue s Recherches sur
Delos t Paris, 1876, 8vo, and the publications of the French School at
Athens, particularly reports of Delian excavations by M. Homolle in the
Bulletin de Correspondance HelUnique.
i LATTER-DAY PAGANISM 3
and Rome of all the ancient world, had its growth; of
sanctuaries where that old-time worship of ideals, by some
miscalled idolatry, grew pure and yet more pure, broad
and broader still, until its inner significance and truth
were no longer to be confined within old forms, could be
fettered no longer by old bonds ; and lo ! Christianity
was there to gather in a heritage of high-born thoughts from
Greece.
In the latter days of paganism there was a two-fold
process by which the world was prepared for the dawning
of an endless hope, the "dayspring from on high." There
was amelioration and purification, as well as a growing
superstition and gradual decay. No less distinguished
an authority than Professor Jebb 1 has said of latter-day
Greek religion :
" The Greeks were a people peculiarly sensitive to every
thing that was in the intellectual air of the time, and there
was. much in it that helped Christianity . . . there was a
tendency to take refuge from polytheism in deism ; and in
particular there was a spreading belief, half-mystic, in the
resurrection of the body, a belief which drew many
votaries to the worship of the Egyptian Serapis, and was in
turn strengthened by that cult."
It has unfortunately been habitual, but less so in these
latter days of religious tolerance, to accept without question
the estimate of paganism made in the heat of conflict by
the early fathers of the Christian Church. What those
great and good men strove to do has been in the fullest
measure accomplished. Christianity has prevailed, and the
tanglewood of ancient mythology, the thickets of ancient
1 Modern .Greece, two lectures delivered before the Philosophical Institu
tion of Edinburgh by R. C. Jebb.
4 INTRODUCTION l
ritual, have receded from the broadening pathway of our
race. But yet the distant view of it remains, its influence
is real to-day though more remote. Indeed the purer
aspects of Greek ritual and Greek mythology have a
counterpart in the most holy Christian places. Surely
there is no lack of real Christian piety in feeling, as it were,
a reminiscence or a glorified survival of the ancient worship
of Dionysus and Demeter at the altar where the bread and
wine are given. It was no fanciful parallel which the
Christian author of Christus Pattens drew 1 between the
yearly passion and yearly resurrection of Dionysus in
ancient ritual and that passion and resurrection which
Christians yearly celebrate to-day.
Consider how much or shall it rather be said how
li tt l e ?_the ideal equality of all sorts and conditions of men
in the presence of God is to-day maintained by Christian
ritual and regulation. And consider then what new impulse
might perhaps be gained from a careful study of the worship
of Aesculapius, of Dionysus, or from a reverential under
standing of the Eleusinian mysteries of Demeter. In
spring, at the high festival of Dionysus birthday, one of
the marked features in the celebration was a free wel
come, extended more than in words, to slaves and day-
labourers. 2 First, sacrifices were made with solemnity,
1 The parallel is drawn by unmistakable implication, since lines from
the Bacchanals of Euripides are freely applied to the suffering Christ,
line 1344 of the Bacchanals, e.g., "Dionysus, we are thy suppliants, we
have sinned," becomes " O Redeemer! we are," etc. The authorship of
Christ Sii/ering was long bestowed on Saint Gregory of Nazianzum,
surnamed the Theologian. It is now given to some unknown person
belonging to a later day of the Church, when the worship of the Virgin
Mary had taken the more definite shape implied by various passages in
the poem.
2 The rural origin of the festival was especially marked by this temporary
obliteration of differences in station. See in Hutchinson s Northumberland,
I GREEK SANCTUARIES 5
and then all alike were invited to come to the banquet of
the god, and partake of his freshly opened wine. So also
it was with the bread of Demeter. All manner of people
were free to come, and be initiated at her Eleusinian
sanctuary, excepting only those polluted in some incurable
manner, as who should say, those who had committed the
sin against the Holy Ghost.
Christianity as we know it, Christianity as we prize it, is
not solely and exclusively a gift from Israel. It is time to
open our eyes and see the facts new and old that stare us
in the face, growing more clear the more investigations and
excavations on Greek soil proceed. To the religion of
Greece and Rome, to the Eleusinian mysteries, to the
worship of Aesculapius and Apollo, to the adoration of
Aphrodite is due more of the fulness and comforting
power of the Church to-day than many of her leaders have
as yet been willing to allow.
The sanctuaries of Demeter at Eleusis and Cnidus, the
Icarian demesne of Dionysus, whither he came to meet his
earliest Attic worshippers ; the Delian shrine of Apollo, and
the temples of his son, the healer Aesculapius, at Athens
and at Epidaurus, these and the Paphian precinct of
sweetly smiling Aphrodite should be well known to him
who seeks understanding of that beautiful religion whose
fifth essence and nobler quality has passed into our own.
Indeed it is universally true that to understand any religion
you must in some sense come under the spell of its
sanctuaries, in some way you must visit its holy places.
vol. ii. end, the account of " Mell Supper": "The servants having per
formed the most valuable part of their labour, are entertained by their
masters, when all distinction is laid aside. This feast is called the Mell
Supper, at which there are dancing, masquing, and disguising, and all other
kinds of rural mirth."
6 INTRODUCTION I
This has been most beautifully set forth in the most recent
work l of a writer whose every utterance on the history of
beliefs brings the greatest help. Speaking of the " Creed
of Heathen Germany/ and of gods very different from those
of Greece, but resembling them in that they too had a part
in the shaping of Christianity, Mr. Keary most poetically
and truly says :
" If in these days we wish to feel the mystic presence of
the great god of the Germans, we must do as our worship
ping forefathers did, withdraw from the concourse of men,
find out some forest solitude, and wait there. Let it be, if
you will, in one of the great stretches of woodland which are
to be found in East and West Prussia; or, better still
nowadays, go to the vast primeval forests which lie upon
the upper slopes of the Scandinavian peninsula, far away
from the fjords and the too frequent steps of tourists. There
you will feel, as you should, the strange and awful stillness
which from time to time reigns in pine forests such as these.
Presently the quiet is broken, first by a sigh, which arises as
from the ground itself, and breathes throughout the wood.
Anon, from a distance a sound is heard so like the sound
of the sea that you might swear (had you never been in such
a wood before) that you could hear the waves drawing
backwards over a pebbly beach. As it approaches the
sound grows into a roar ; it is the roar of the tempest, the
coming of Wodin."
1 The Vikings in Western Christendom, by C. F. Keary, M.A., F.S.A.
T. Fisher Unwin, 1891.
2 To quote this passage without Mr. Keary s justification of it would
not be a great harm, since it bears witness in a great measure to its own
truth, but what Mr. Keary says seems to me of a very universal import
ance, and to bear upon the right treatment of Greek as well as of German
mythology. Speaking of his own account of Wodin in the forest, he says :
It will be said by some that this description is purely imaginary. I
I GREEK SANCTUARIES 7
It is indeed a privilege newly and exclusively granted to
the highest moods and broadest minds of to-day, this
enlightened tolerance, this "genial catholicity of apprecia
tion," which finds even in paganism a message from the
only and the everlasting God. Now at last, thanks to the
painstaking work which truly scientific men have done in
archaeology, we are receiving something of the legacy be
queathed us by those who lived and loved and prayed of
old in Athens and in Rome. Now at last we may feel, with
no petty wish to carp or cavil, the sacredness of ancient
sanctuaries, and know them for ever consecrated to "the
sessions of sweet silent thought," where we summon up not
only " remembrance of things past," but also much of the
sweet usage and workaday reality in things now present for
our spiritual aid.
Let this new privilege console somewhat the praisers of
the past, for it makes up for and takes the place of much
that modern men have lost. Let malcontents consider
in this new-dawned light of tolerance the early worship of
both Greece and Rome, and then they may forget to
remember how their lots and their lives are cast into a
world so filled with quantity, so choked and crammed to
bursting with millions whether of men or money, that
quality seems lost, or even to be, when rarely found,
make a distinction between what is imaginative and what is imaginary. If
you choose not to go into the study of mythology or of beliefs of any kind
until you have first stripped yourself of your imagination, you will travel
indeed lightly burdened, and you will arrive at strange results. Because,
as belief of all kinds is born of the imagination, and Aberglaube is, as
Goethe says, the poetry of life, you will have taken the precaution of going
into the dark unprovided with a lantern. To avoid doing this you are not
obliged, however, to give free rein to your fancy. Nor have we done so here."
I have taken the liveliest interest in seeing how near to my own point
of view Mr. Keary arrived, and how the idea of studying the Pagan
religion in its sanctuaries had presented itself to him in another part of the
field.
8 INTRODUCTION i
neglected and misprized. Let us then exhort the pessimists
of this, the golden hour of the broadest and most real
Christianity that truest consecration of democracy to
look not backward but upward, and discern in the broad
humanity and strength, and above all in the toleration l of
latter-day religion, a gleam from Olympus of the Greeks.
Their religion, so far as it was true, still lives and shines in
the light of to-day. In the high types of excellence and
beauty which Greek religion created, and Roman practice
made more all-embracing and enduring, there is manifested
a mercy whose overruling providence leads us towards the
best.
Indeed the quality of Greek divinities is that of mercy.
Demeter s love is faithful, although the heavens seem to fall,
and though earth withholds all comfort for a time ; her
chastened joy (when at last it comes) is divinely pure and
gracious in the fulness of its perfect peace. Apollo, that
most truly Greek of all divinities, is a gloriously dazzling
exemplar of purity and light. He, the sun-god, is mirrored
like the sun from a thousand angles of refraction. Understand
this god, and straightway his image, shaped this way or that
by accident, or even distorted by some chance, will be always
1 It is a fact well known that regular offerings were made on behalf of
Augustus at the Temple in Jerusalem. This was but one of many small
practices which grew out of the Theocrasia or commingling of gods, a
result of that all-embracing toleration which led Greeks and Romans
alike to treat as their own the gods of other nations. See the opening
plea in the Octavius of Quintus Minucius Felix, p. 6 B-E. It was a pious
duty for travellers in remote parts of the empire to sacrifice to the local
gods wherever they went. When the absolute antagonism between
paganism and Christianity brought persecution to pass, there was still a
lack of thoroughgoing intolerance as compared with that of the Inquisition.
A comparison of the numbers put to death by Roman and Spanish
intolerance respectively establishes this fact. See Friedlaender, Dar-
stellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Rom s in der Zeit von Augztst bis zum
Ausgang der Antonine, iii. p. 586.
I POWERS OF GREEK GODS 9
returning to your wandering eye from every corner and
surface of Greek story and Greek song. Achilles had the
swiftness and the pure white heat that make Apollo known, 1
and that nobly moulded youth, who bursts, divine in
righteous anger, on our view upon the western pediment of
the temple of great Zeus, 2 is a very incarnation of the power
of Apollo. Whether he be Apollo, or, as some think,
Pirithous, 3 the act of quenching lust and foiling brutal
crime is most pure 4 Apollo s own.
Dionysus, the dread, the deep, the darkly irresistible, a
god of mystery and of intensity, the all-possessor of men,
and even of beasts and things upborne by onrush and inrush
of his power Dionysus lives on to-day in the fairy-land of
poetry, mirrored by the motley throng of Orpheus tales and
songs of wine and stones of overpowering inspirations. All
and each of the greater Greek gods still live their charmed
life, and even to-day each one in some sense is the centre
of a scheme of things, a universe all his own.
There was, in fact, little or no thought in early Greece of
how one god s power might be made compatible with that
attributed to and exercised by another. Each Greek state
was, according to Greek theory, absolutely independent of
all and every other. Therefore it was not unnatural for
Greeks to think of each one of their great divinities as in
some sense partaking of an absolute independence. Each
great god had been worshipped, no doubt, at some time,
1 For some admirable remarks on this parallelism, which scarcely needs
to be pointed out, see Keary s Outlines of Primitive Belief, p. 192 : "Each
is the ideal youth, the representative, one might fairly say, of young
Greece, that which was to become in after years Hellas."
2 See Appendix XI. i. 141 and 143.
3 Pausanias, V. x. 8.
4 For Apollo as the god of purity see the last chapter below on Apollo
at Delos.
10
INTRODUCTION
somewhere in broad and various Hellas, as the supreme
arbiter of destiny, the wielder of all power, and the hearer
of all prayer. Thus we have glimpses of an earliest time l
when Greek religion was, if the word be insisted upon,
monotheistic. At each centre of political life it would seem
that men worshipped a god whose omnipotence was bounded
by the boundaries of that particular state. The difference
in relative importance noticeable between the gods con
nects itself with the history of the chief place of this
and that god s worship. A certain early importance in
matters religious belonged to Dodona for instance, and the
national character borne in later days by the festival of
Olympian Zeus was partly the cause and not wholly the
effect of the kingship attributed by universal consent to Zeus
among the great gods on Olympus as well as at Olympia.
Judge Greek religion not by all its moods, but by all its
highest and most characteristic ones. Avoid as you would
the very spirit of untruth a judgment of Greek political and
religious ideas, founded on notions of politics and religion
that only came into being in modern times, and then you
will say that Greek religion was a polytheism where each of
many great gods was potentially the one and only god for
every Greek, but actually and more particularly in one place
and for one people of Greece. The Greek religion of poly
theism was more monotheistic than monotheism itself, for
the Greeks were not content with one only God Almighty
and Supreme, they had and they worshipped many such. 2
1 Of this earliest day we can have only glimpses, and it must be to a
large extent ideal, as retrospects of the kind always are. In reality many
disturbing causes came in, such as the relics of an utterly barbarous phase
of religion and a certain compatibility between local all-importance and
ideal subordination in a rough scheme of the religious world, such as a
peasant s mind could form.
2 Lehrs (Populdre Aufsdfze, p. 130) expresses substantially the same
I ROMAN ORGANISATION 11
The truth which this paradox contains is shown by the
course of Greek political history a stream which ran
curiously and closely parallel to that of Greek religion. The
whole range and expanse of ancient Greek life were requisite
before the Greeks could win from struggles and adversity
the lesson of political subordination and national unity.
While this life-giving knowledge was most vivacious within
it, the mind of Greece was merged with its territory in the
body politic of Rome, and Rome was livened for her task
by Grecian wit. 1 Indeed, humanity has possessed the
power of potent organisation and broader growth only since
the day when Hellas died as a separate political power,
conscious at last, though late, that captious independence
overstrained had brought destruction in its train. Rome
imperial Rome showed forth most plain the moral of
Hellenic failure, and Roman success made way for the con
ception of something higher even than political organisation
of the broadest kind. After and because of the heathen
empire came the Holy Empire which crowned all others,
the empire of the universal Church.
At Marathon and Plataea, Greece defeated the patriarchal
order of politics and religion. There was a moment of
universal history when the clan was succeeded by the com
monwealth, when the spirit of humankind required new
room for growth, more room than the oriental polity of
idea by drawing a distinction which eludes translation. "The Greek,"
he says, could perfectly well apprehend (begreifen) one sole God, but
his mental requirements and endowments were utterly averse to any real
comprehension (ergreifen). He always fell short of a realising sense, and
accordingly never lived up to, never acted out the idea."
1 The Roman conquest of Greece was a welcome event to the
mass of the European Greeks. The popular sentiment at the time
was expressed by a parody of the saying attributed to Themistocles in
exile to the effect that his ruin had made his fortune." Jebb s Modern
Greece, p. 3.
12 INTRODUCTION I
Persia could afford it. To the old Persian order succeeded
the new era of Greece and Rome.
Sir Alfred Lyall, in his Asiatic Studies^ most acutely says
that Greece invented " political . citizenship, and rules of
conduct under State sanction. Between the clans and the
commonwealths the difference is not so much between law
lessness and free institutions as between the primitive man,
whose social and political customs are as much a part of
his species as the inherited habit of an animal, and the
highly civilised man who consciously chooses his own
laws and form of government according to expediency and
logic." The props of tribe and caste were dispensed with,
that the wider and freer political organisation of our day
might come into being. For the evolution of so vast a
system the ground had first of all to be cleared. This took
place before the battle of Marathon, on the very restricted
scale which Greece allowed, but not to the same extent
everywhere in Greece. The Spartan institutions of Lycurgus
(so far as we can know them) are a curious crystallisation of
primitive, social, and political habits, hardly in advance of
what to-day excites wonder and defies a casual comprehen
sion in India and Central Asia. Athens, the typically free,
the truly modern Greek state, had her triumph at Marathon,
Salamis, and Plataea. For a time this new way of living
required a very restricted sphere of action, these new states
had to be small. Independence rather than interdepend
ence was the watchword of this dawning period. The
time was not yet come for federations or confederations,
and hence the Athenian Confederacy failed. Years and
years of political experience had to be gathered in by
Athenians and by Romans before a solidly constituted state
of this new type became possible on a large scale.
i THE KINGDOM OF EARTH 13
To those who cannot see how different in kind from
anything known before was the small Greek Polis, it must
seem that the Greek world was far more hopelessly split up
after the Peloponnesian war than it had been in the days of
Homeric song. In politics the new principle made coali
tion impossible, and in religion it left to local divinities
their old-time omnipotence. The loose and unsettled
organisation of the government in heaven by Zeus was
still what Homer had made it.
But this was only for a time. When at last the world
from which we spring, and of whose life we are, had been
qualified for wider things, and had outgrown Greek indi
vidualism, then Greece had grown into Rome, and had
allied itself with that spirit of subordination and self-dis
cipline by which alone the Romans conquered all mankind.
Imperial Rome at its best has seemed a realisation of Plato s
dream, a state where philosophers were kings and kings were
philosophers. This was truly the kingdom of Heaven upon
earth, and a comparison forced itself upon religious minds
between the perfect union and solidarity of all functionaries
of the empire and that loose government of the spiritual
world on Olympus which tradition ascribed to Zeus.
According to these latter-day notions the power of Zeus
over his fellow-gods and subjects was contemptibly small
and precarious. A desire asserted itself gradually that the
kingdom of earth should arrive in the heavens. 1 The
1 This desire showed itself very vigorously even in the lifetime of
Augustus, having already found expression under Julius Caesar in a very
extreme form. Professor Merriam (see the next note) has gathered
most interesting proofs. See also Giacomo Lumbroso, L Egitto al tempo
dei Greci e del Romani. Both of these writers correct the errors of
Mommsen, who maintains that the Caesareum at Alexandria was dedicated
to Caesar Appulsor. This epithet is a mistranslation ; the real equivalent of
is the deity to whom the ^Tri/SaTijpta sacrifices at embarkation
i 4 INTRODUCTION i
Roman emperors were deified, inter atia, as the represen
tatives of a more logically ordered scheme of things than
that presented by the poetical figures that ruled Olympus.
Nowhere was this new hierarchy of the heavens more
sedulously cultivated than by the Greek members of the
Roman Empire. Zeal for this new worship has earned for
Greece much slander from unreflecting persons. Servility
and base flattery are attributed to men who really were
following in the footsteps of their forefathers, and seeking
an organised religion which their poetical traditions could not
give, though it did suggest the lack of it. Indeed Zeus or
and disembarkation were made, who rules and protects all sailors. For
this aspect of Imperial divinity see Virgil, Georgics, i. 29-31, and Propertius,
iii. ii, 71. Apollo and Zeus were the two other divinities, beside Poseidon,
with whom Augustus was identified. Professor Merriam s array of in
scriptions is particularly interesting. Philo Judaeus, Legatio ad Caium,
describes Augustus as the source of worshipful majesty to his successors,
the defender from evil ( AXet /caKos). The entire habitable world decreed
honours to him co-equal with those of the Olympian gods." Caesar (eTTi-
/for7?pioy) at Alexandria (navigantium praeses] was, as the same Philo de
scribes him, " the saving hope of all who weigh anchor or enter within its
(the harbour s) shelter." The seriousness of Alexandrine sailors in this con
ception of the divinity ot Augustus (the Caesareum of Alexandria was not,
as Mommsen says, for the worship of Julius but for that of Augustus Caesar)
is picturesquely shown in chapter xcviii. of Suetonius Life. Catilius placed
at Egyptian Philae a dedication to Caesar ruler of the sea, a mighty Zeus
swaying limitless regions, son of Zeus (Caesar) the Deliverer . . . star of
all Hellas that rose as a mighty Zeus the Saviour." At the temple of Isis
at Tenbyris in the year i A.D. , Octavius, of the emperor s own gens, styles
Augustus Zeus Eleutherios. At Herod s Caesarea-by-the-sea Augustus was
worshipped under the aspect of the well-known statue of Zeus at Olympia.
The Athenian temple of Olympian Zeus was finally dedicated to the
genius Augusti. Of Augustus worshipped under the guise of Apollo Dr.
Merriam gives many instances ; his Egyptian style is, autocrator Caesar,
son of the Sun, King of Upper and Lower Egypt." Moreover, upon two
Demotic stelae (in the British Museum) from Memphis are interesting
records of two brothers who were priests. One of them died, and his
brother was appointed in his place by Augustus in the first year of the
god, the son of the god, the great foreign god Caesar autocrator"; and,
furthermore, he was made " Prophet of Caesar." Inscriptions exist dated
during Augustus s lifetime (qualifying him in spite of his prohibition as a
god) from Apamea (C. /. G. 3525), Lesbos, Delos.
I THE ROMAN ORDER 15
Jupiter could not very long remain the emperor of Olympus
when once the deifications of Roman emperors had accus
tomed men to think of the ordered rule of heaven as a
counterpart in some way of the ordered and most plainly
organised rule on earth. 1
This impulse to sanctify the secular arm of government
marked the reigns of many Roman princes, and made all good
emperors, and some even whose vices earned the scorn of those
near by, the idols of the provinces. Hence arose that consecra
tion of a universal headship covering all affairs, both spiritual
and temporal, which has survived in the Roman Church and
in the Russian part of what to-day still bears the title of
the Greek Church. This glorification of imperial attributes
at Rome helped to undermine men s faith in the established
Greco -Roman religion. Each of the careless gods on
Greek Olympus trenched too palpably upon the pperogatives
of various of his fellows. There was no loophole of escape
for the ingenuity even of Roman jurisprudence. Zeus had
too many affinities with Dionysus, who resembled Apollo in
his powers and Aesculapius in his story. Apollo the healer
was more than Aesculapius father, he often seemed to be
all there was of the godhead of Aesculapius. Was Apollo
the god and Aesculapius but a man ? But then what
became of the miracles and divine pretensions of the latter ?
How came both Dionysus and Aesculapius to birth by the
1 Appendix I. below deals with the deification of the emperors (see
Horace, Od. i. 2, and elsewhere), and on the general subject read Gaston
Boissier, " La religion romaine d Auguste aux Antonins," and also consult
A. E. Egger, Examen critique des historiens anciens de la vie et du regne
d Auguste." An interesting account of The Caesareum and the worship of
Augustus at Alexandria by Professor A. C. Merriam will be found in the
"Transactions of the Am. Philological Association for 1883." The con
clusions in this paper are the more interesting because arrived at without
any knowledge of Boissier s views. They confirm the view taken in this
lecture and its Appendix.
16 INTRODUCTION i
same miraculous and premature intervention of fire ? These
perplexities and others remained unanswered even by the
clumsy hocus-pocus of venal priests, or the more disinterested
but equally unconvincing lucubrations of Orphic brother
hoods. Hence arose a want unsatisfied and universal ; from
the natural evolution of political and religious life in an
tiquity arose a cry to which then came the answer of
Christianity : Illimitable hope has new made heaven and earth^
and order has supplanted shapeless and unseemly riot in the
spiritual realms through which we have true life. Universal
Christianity was called into being to meet the new and
Roman order of things where organisation was everything.
Then the turbulence of Greek individualism had to keep
the peace or cease to be.
The religion of Greece as such was guiltless of system and
wholly devoid of method. It may be compared to a way
ward prayer poetically prayed, according to the whimsies of
many daring flights of devotional ecstasy, 1 and not to a scheme
of the ordered universe so reasoned out and so systematised
that it could be written down in creeds or expressed in
articles. But now arises the question, How could worship
or prayer of any kind be possible unless there was some
definite understanding of the powers and provinces of
various gods ? This is really the same question of which
we tried to dispose a moment since. We are forced to ask
it in this day of clear-cut creeds because of all the history
of religious ideas between us and early Greece. This
question, however, no really Greek -minded person could
1 We can reason out the growth of a belief ; for looked at over a wide
area and followed through a sufficient period of time, every belief has a
kind of reason and a kind of reality. But to each individual in his brief
span of life it is like the wind ; he cannot tell whence it cometh or whither
it goeth." Keary, The Vikings, p. 59.
i GREE K INDI VI D UA LISM 1 7
have understood, let alone answering it. Indeed the
possibility of maintaining the old ritual and of worshipping
the old divinities depended somewhat upon the im
possibility of asking this question. From this it is evident
that in considering the past, and more especially in dealing
with a bygone religion, we must perform the feat of leaving
out our own peculiar selves, and all the ready-made ideas
with which our minds have been upholstered. This
involves a scrupulous self-examination, and brings before
us again the old first law of Delphian Apollo know
thyself. Think yourself away, if it were possible, from
all this workaday world of business, with its majority
whose thinking is more or less at second hand borrowed
from tradition or echoed from great leaders lips think
that you have neither heard nor dreamed of a large state
solidly organised as we know states to-day. Think of a
condition of mind where the management of a large railway
would be deemed impossible ; where the notion of policing
a town of half a million had not dawned, and the thought
had not entered in of combining large states into one
political aggregate otherwise than by the lash of an over
powering master, of the Great King, as the Greeks in their
most independent days named under their breath the ruler
of Persia.
Incapable as the Greeks were even of the Persian
counterfeit of political organisation, they never raised nice
questions in theology about the prerogatives of their gods.
Apollo, Dionysus, Zeus, Demeter, and many others were
coexistent and all-powerful, yet there was room for the
new divinities that came from Egypt and the East. The
abstract question of subordination among the gods did not
dawn even upon the greatest and most far-reaching minds
c
i8 INTRODUCTION I
of Greece. Many and subtle are Plato s arguments about
the gods. Difficulties springing from the various and
often discreditable tales told about them crowd upon his
truly pious mind ; but he is never distracted by the desire
to fix exact limits of power for each. Plato, Pindar, and
Euripides, Greek minds which were especially pre-occupied
by religious problems, devoted their efforts in this direction
to disentangling the wisdom and omnipotent strength of God
from the follies and frailties of man, as well as from the
more than human infirmities attributed to ancient gods in
old-time stories. To vindicate the poetic purity and truth of
Apollo, to show forth the uncalculating and tragical intensity
of Dionysus, was their chosen task, a far more important
one at that time than the elaborating of a heavenly hierarchy
or the formulation of a creed. All divinities, says Plato,
are false if they are not spotless and free from imputations
of falsehood; in his perfect commonwealth the poets
shall be forbidden to sing of gods who can be bribed
like unjust men. With similar intent Pindar piously
remoulds the story of the house of Tantalus, since it is
unlawful to attribute evil to the gods ; while almost every
page of Euripides bears the impress of a conflict in men s
minds between the noblest ideal conception of godhead
and the popular stories and superstitions concerning the
gods.
The Greek poets and philosophers are among our
intellectual progenitors, and therefore the religion of to
day has requirements which include all that the noblest
Greek could dream of requirements which the aspirations
of Israel alone could not satisfy. Our complex life had
need not only of a supreme god of power, universal and
irresistible, of a jealous god beside whom there was no
I GREEK RELIGIOUS THINKERS 19
other god, but also of a god of love and grace and
purity. To these ideal qualities present in the diviner
godhead of the Gospels the evolution of Greek mythology
brought much that satisfies our hearts. This I say because
the purity inculcated in the religion of the Jews and
enforced by penalties, as recited in various episodes of the
Old Testament, rarely imposes itself by the inner charm
of native worth and loveliness. It comes upon us fre
quently as the will of a resistless and often unrelenting
God, a religious point of view transcended by Plato,
Pindar, and Euripides. Both these presentations were
doubtless needed, but the importance of this latter must
not blind us to the power for good inherent in the former.
And here we may remember the quaint and solemn words
of Henry More in the Mysterie of Godliness : " Christi
anity is so excellent in itself that we need not phansy any
Religions worse then they are, the better to set off its
eminency. Besides the more tolerable sense we can make
of the affairs of the ancient Pagans, the easier Province we
shall have to maintain against prophane and Atheistical men,
to whom if you would grant that Providence had utterly
neglected for so many ages together all the nations of the
world except that little handfull- of the Jews, they would,
whether you would or no, from thence infer that there was
no Providence over them neither, and consequently no God."
All these considerations certainly arouse a feeling of
thankfulness that the great religious leaders of Greek
thought should before all things have occupied themselves
with the goodness of their various ideal divinities. Had
their preoccupation been to show that one god was more
powerful than another, rather than the total superiority of
gods to humankind, then the charm of goodness " hearted in
20 INTR OD UCTION
high hearts" would never have ended by attaching to the
best man s conception of the best god in Olympus. It is,
in fact, difficult to see how the spontaneous charm of
Demeter s love, the glorifying efficacy of her sorrows, could
have been set before the human mind, could have been
dramatised otherwise than in a community of gods no one
of whom had an absolute and omnipresent supremacy. It
is fortunate perhaps for us that the Greeks were poetical
and dramatic rather than logical and literal-minded in their
theology, if theology we choose to call it, for in the
charmed realm of their great gods where as equals they
suffered and struggled, hoped and helped, loved and were
loved, the ideal character of the perfect god a man divine,
a human god was gradually brought to be. 1
i It was not omnipotence so much as solitude, lack of good fellowship,
of susceptibility to comforts and delights, that Pagans found fault with in
-the Christian ideal. "Whence comes, who is, and where lives their
precious god?" asks Caecilius, and then he gives his own answer by
qualifying the god as " Unicus, solitarius, destitutus," without a fellow,
solitary -wholly forsaken. Forthefull passage see the Octavivsoi Mmucius
Felix p 13 Possibly the mere fact that the Christians boasted of the
oneness of their god enhanced the Pagan appreciation of mere multiplicity;
and yet there is a genuine ring in the saying attributed to one of the imperial
defenders of Paganism that a universe emptied of numerous divinities was
uninhabitable.
Lehrs has given the best account of the matter as it affected
fundamentally Greek notions of religion. "The very circles long accus
tomed to a view of myths which either abandoned or explained them
away, the very people who (like the influential Stoics) had definitely made
up their minds against all gods in human shape, entertained side by side
with the metaphysical conception of one highest god a present belief m
many gods. Nor was this belief a mere matter of formal dogma ; it
lived and glowed with a power that influenced men s lives." Again Lehrs
says in the same essay, entitled, Gott, Goiter und Ddmonen, When
your Greek contemplated nature and the feebleness and dependence of
man, there arose before him not one god ... but there was a spon
taneous outburst of the fulness of life divine. He saw a world of gods.
The gifted author at the close of this interesting passage finds an adequate
though untranslatable phrase for the lives and loves ( of the gods on
Olympus, "Dieses vielgestaltige Gotterineinanderleben." Populare Auf-
sdtze, p. 130.
i ANOMALIES OF GREEK RELIGION 21
In searching out the development of an ideal character,
divine and human, through the tangles of poetic fiction that
served at once to hide and to protect it till its growth was
strong, we must be ready for surprises. We must forget
that Zeus was ruler in Olympus, and be often prepared
to treat him like the least among his attendant divinities.
His looks and even his attributes are given sometimes to
Aesculapius, one of the latest of partakers in Olympian
immortality. Apollo and Dionysus will often seem almost
convertible, and the worship of Demeter merges into that
of Rhea on the one hand, and on the other into that of
Cybele, while all three goddesses are continually exercising
powers, giving ear to prayers, and receiving offerings
which might be equally well associated with the name of
Aphrodite.
In fact, the most profitable state of mind for one who
would learn about Greek religion treats each god and
goddess in turn as if he or she alone existed, and at the
same time always bears in vivid mind the history and
attributes of all and several of the other gods. 1
There was noticeable in the* last days of Paganism a
breaking down of barriers, an effacement of the individual
status of each god. This process began much earlier, how
ever, in the case of some gods than in that of others. In
deed one of the greatest Greek divinities, Dionysus, seems
1 In dealing with this difficulty one thing chiefly needful, according to
Lehrs, is to accustom our minds to the notion of an extended sphere of
action for each and all of the several gods. Every god had his own peculiar
and appropriate range of usefulness and activity, and yet every god was
besought for every manner of help, in any place where he was close at
hand, where he was propitious, where he was especially worshipped. "
Populdre Aufsdtze, p. 138. Indeed a very close parallel to this over
lapping of the spheres of power assigned to the various gods may be
found in cases of appeal made to patron saints in the Greek and in the
Roman Church.
22 INTRODUCTION i
never to have been to-day what yesterday had shown him,
and on every morrow he was changed again. He began
as the great god of Thrace, a prophet-ruler of the dead.
Introduced in more southerly climes, he became in one
place a god of clemency, and in another the avenging deity.
So far as the religious consciousness of Hellas was ever
wholly awakened, just so far was there an attempt to frame
the universal Dionysus out of elements drawn from all this
revelling rout of fairy-tales. In one direction the differ
ences fell away that divided Dionysus from his father
Zeus ; on another side and this is a vital point for under
standing the history not only of Greek but especially
of Attic religion a close affinity showed itself between
Dionysus 1 and Apollo, more especially Delphian Apollo.
Delphi was the seat of a joint worship of Dionysus and
Apollo. Apollo absented himself from his shrine on Par
nassus as well as from his holy island of Delos during the
bitterer winter months. At Delphi Dionysus naturally
ruled supreme while Apollo was thus absent, since he was
there before Apollo came at all. I shall now speak of
Delphi, not only because of this interesting coupling of two
great gods, this dwelling together in unity at Delphi of two
divine and blessed brethren, but also because there is a
certain present appropriateness in the theme. How could
I more suitably close an introduction to lectures that are to
deal with excavations already achieved than by talking of a
far-famed site where all is yet to be done, and showing what
1 Dionysus finally reached a point which may be described as a con
fluence of epithets derived from all the various forms of his own story, and
also from the closely allied worship and myths of Osiris as well as from
other sources farther away. See the Plutarchian tract on Isis and Osiris ;
and for the mass of epithets see Orphic Hymns, No. 51, which gives forty-
five epithets, and No. 30, where there are twenty-eight.
i APOLLO AT DELPHI 23
vital questions may be answered by successful diggings
there ?
The clearness and the almost intellectual sparkle of the
fountain of Castalia l can be neither overpraised nor over
prized. To slake the thirst at this bright stream, and look
from Delphian heights downward and see the far-off
glimmer of a distant sea descried from aloft and afar across
the Crissaean plain, memorable for the sacred wars fought
that none might pollute it by tillage of any kind, is an
experience never to be forgotten. Then turn away and see
the sun-illumined glories of those high-heaved bulwarks on
Parnassus side, the rocks once called Phaedriades. High
above the ledge, where ancient Delphi rose, are reared
these sheer walls of living light ; and one of the mysterious
places which some connect with the Apolline oracle is a
seemingly unmeasurable rift in these Phaedriades that may
be entered by adventurous climbers from the gathering-
place of the Castalian spring.
Here, truly, is a place where pilgrims would resort, and
at Delphi the traveller in Greece may even now fitly bring
to a climax all those feelings of wonder and exultation
awakened by the sight of Greece, the common and inalien
able fatherland of generous souls. If two friends were
shortly to be parted, and each to see the other s living face no
more, I could wish for them no more solemn place for their
last days of fellowship than Delphi, Delphi as it is to-day.
Here they could read together that most solemn, sweet,
and pious play 2 where Euripides shows forth the spirit of
1 Appendix XI. ii. 76. *
Such, I maintain, is the character of the play which has recently
been described by a distinguished authority as an "attack upon Delphi."
My reasons for dissenting from this unusual view of the Ion have been
fully presented in the Nation, No. 1329 (i8th December 1890).
24 INTRODUCTION i
truth and noble - hearted kindliness that inspired the
Delphian worship of Apollo. Above the actors in the
play of Ion towers Parnassus ; the brighter, purer air of
its twin peaks exhales from every line of this tragedy, which
may after all be deemed no tragedy, since it comes to a
happy issue, that involves neither murder nor sudden death.
Both of these twin Parnassus peaks belonged to Apollo and
Dionysus, as Dante remembered in his invocation of Apollo
at the beginning of his Paradise ; but, so far as Apollo alone
stood for the highest reach of the poetic spirit, the highest
summit was peculiarly his. Hence Dante says :
Most kind Apollo, for my final task
Make thou of me such vessel of thy grace
As with thy laurel-crown thou canst reward.
One peak thus far of high Parnassus twain
I found enough ; but now must have them both, 1
Or enter not the contest that impends.
Now enter thou my breast, inspire me thou !
1 This is a far truer and more effective picture than that of Cervantes
in the "Journey to Parnassus," where Helicon with its Hippocrene, its
Pegasus, and its Aganippe is made a part of Parnassus. Dante only
remembered (as Scartazzini says) the beautiful lines of Lucan (Phars. v.
71-74) describing the Parnassus :
" Hesperio tantum, quantum semotus Eoo
Cardine, Parnassus gemino petit aethera colle,
Mons Phoebo, Bromioque sacer : cui numine mixto
Delphica Thebanae referunt trieterica Bacchae. "
It is interesting to see that Dante was not, as Cervantes was, appealed to
by the array of misguided learning which he might easily have derived
from the commentary of Servius on Virgil, much resorted to in his day.
See Servius on Georg. iii. 43 ; Eel. vi. 29, x. u. In his commentary on
the Aeneid, Servius carries this confusion farther by saying on Aeneid vii.
641 : Parnassus, mons Thessaliae, dividit^lr in Cithaeronem, Liberi, et
Heliconem, Apollinis, cuius sunt Musae ; and again on the same line
repeated, Aeneid x. 163 : Parnassus mons est Thessaliae iuxta Boeotiam,
qui in duo finditur iuga, Cithaeronem Liberi, et Heliconem Apollinis et
Musarum. The origin of this confusion between the two peaks of Par
nassus and the neighbouring pair of Boeotian peaks is probably to be found
I PARNASSUS 25
In Dante s mind Apollo stood aloof from all other
exemplars of the pure poetic spirit, from all other inspirers
of majestic song. The Muses and Dionysus were enough
for him while he but sang of torments and of earth, but for
the upward winging of his song through the heavens,
Apollo s inspiration was required. It came to him as a
crowning consummation and a grace ineffable from God to
uplift his soul and transfigure his body until he could have
a perfect vision of heaven, the wonderland of man s
nativity, the fatherland of every righteous soul.
This true insight into the unperishable function, the
indestructible potency of Apollo, was possessed not by
Dante alone, but by many poets ancient and modern. It
has been indeed a true instinct, an unfaltering flight of
in the vague recollection of certain details in a quotation from Hermesianax
of Cyprus made in the Plutarchian work De Fluviis (II. lafj.rjvbs). Par
nassus generically includes all peaks between Mounts Oeta and Corax on
the one hand, and Cirrha and Anticirrha on the other ; specifically the name
Parnassus applies to the two highest peaks in this range which are named
Tithorea ( Herod, viii. 32, Strabo, p. 417, and Pausan. X. xxxii. 6) and Lycorea
(Pausan. ibid, and Strabo, p. 418). For the Greek poets these peaks
were inseparable, and were associated with rites more frequently connected
with Dionysus than with Apollo (Aeschylus, Eum. 22 ff. ; Soph. Ant. 1126
ff. and 1144 f . ; Eurip. /. T. 1244, Phoen. 205 ff. , 226 ff., Ion, 713, and
Hypsipyle, fr. 752). Apollo was not however excluded, but his presence was
involved in that of Dionysus. Pausanias, speaking of the peaks of Par
nassus (X. xxxii. 7), says : TO, 8 veQ&v r CGTIV cu/wrepw TO, &Kpa, Kail at
6i&gt;tdes eTri TOVTOIS ry Atovwry /cat T A7r6XXwvt /j.aivot&gt;Tai. Virgil and
Ovid say nothing new about the two peaks. Ovid agrees with Pindar in
making Parnassus the Mount Ararat of Deucalion s deluge. Lucan does
not exclude either god from either peak ; but, nevertheless, Benvenuto da
Imola has rightly interpreted Dante s meaning here by saying : " Unum
iugum Parnassi deputatum Baccho suffecit sibi hucusque, nunc vero et
illud et aliud consecratum Apollini est sibi necessarium. Per Bacchum
autem figuratur scientia naturalis quae haberi potest per acquisitionem
humanam, sicut physica et ethica." Apollo represents metaphysica or
sacra scientia ; Bacchus stands for eloquence, quae hucusque suffecit
sibi " ; but Apollo is sapientia. Then he maintains that Apollo and
Bacchus represent the same god under different names, quoting Macrobius,
and "Orpheus sacer poeta." Dante himself here adopts Orphic views.
See Appendix XL ii. 86-89, ar &gt;d Hi. 9-
26 INTRODUCTION I
poetic inspiration, which has preserved Apollo more than
any other of the gods in Greece. Let us then see at
last that Apollo rather than Zeus was governor of
Olympus, that the only real discipline if such a word
be applicable at all submitted to even momentarily by
all the gods in Greece emanated from Delphi and the
far-sighted, wide -minded oracle of Apollo at that holy
place.
Zeus was a king among gods, who reigned but governed
not. 1 His Premier was the Delphian god. This way of
stating the facts is new, but still the very nature of Greek
mythology and religion warrants us in adopting it. The
god of purest highest poetry alone was competent rightly
to order a religion which was pure poesy. Instinctively
the poets Homer and Hesiod shaped Greek religion, and
Herodotus speaks of them as its originators, the first theo
logians. It is against the poets and their poetical theology
that Plato makes his protest. All this, together with the
necessity laid upon us, even to this present hour, of going
to school, to the great Greek poets, when we seek to inform
ourselves about the Greek gods and their sanctuaries, will
prepare us for one of the many exquisitely true utterances
exquisitely made by Mr. Walter Pater, to whose various
1 A certain latter-day enhancement of the supreme power of Zeus is
one of the interesting differences that distinguish Greco-Roman from early
Greek religion. This was but the natural result of the political preponder
ance of Rome and the Theocrasy or commingling of heterogeneous gods
taken in conjunction with the new place made for imperial ideas in the reli
gious service of the empire. No doubt philosophy and the clearly thought-
out belief in one supreme power, to which so many leaders of later Pagan
thought gave utterance, also played its part. To Jupiter or Zeus, as the
titular representatives among the traditional gods of this supreme maker
and orderer of the universe, universal prayers were made. It must, how
ever, be remembered just here that we are prone to read into the religion
of the ancients something of our own clear-cut notion about an indisputably
supreme author of all being.
i PATER, MANNHARDT, AND PRELLER 27
essays l I earnestly refer for much that enlightened me in
the preparation of these lectures. To him, and also to the
well-known book of Preller, and to essays by William
Mannhardt, 2 that deserve to be better known than they
are, I desire to make especial acknowledgment.
In his first essay on the Myth of Demeter and Perse
phone, Mr. Pater draws to his close with words for which
I claim a wider application than he gives to them. After
truly saying that " there is a certain cynicism in that over-
positive temper, which is so jealous of our catching any
resemblance in the earlier world to the thoughts that really
occupy our minds, and which, in its estimate of the actual
fragments of antiquity, is content to find no seal of human
intelligence upon them," he speaks of the theory of com
parative mythology and of the specific and most helpful
doctrine or theory of animism. 3 " Only," he adds, in the
1 Two essays on "The Myth of Demeter and Proserpina" in the Fort
nightly for January and February 1876, and in December of the same year,
"A Study of Dionysus." This last is completed by an essay on "The
Bacchanals of Euripides," published in Macmillari s Magazine for May 1889.
- Mythologische Forschungen, posthumously published by H. Patzig in
1874.
3 Since the preparation and delivery of these studies as lectures this
whole subject has been elaborated in Mr. Frazer s Golden Bough, which is
a treasure-house of information in regard to primitive religious customs.
Especial attention is there given to customs and stories which embody this
doctrine of animism. As a matter of course the elements of especial interest
in Greek myths as such reach immeasurably above and beyond any traces
of primitive religion or fetichism discernible in their beginning. Still,
since the absence of a right account means almost inevitably a wrong
account of these beginnings, Mr. PYazer s book is relevant to the study of
Greek mythology and religion. His readers are, however, in serious
danger of thinking otherwise because the centre of gravity in his Golden
Bough falls beyond its base. The picturesque but comparatively unim
portant rite of the Arician Grove is no proper nucleus for the important
material which Mr. Frazer has gathered into his book.
Much light is thrown upon various questions discussed below in another
and most welcome publication, The Monuments and Mythology of Ancient
Athens, by Miss Harrison and Mrs. Verrall. I can only regret that I had
not the great advantage of using both these books in preparing my lectures.
28 INTRODUCTION i
application of these theories, "the critic must not forget
that after all it is with poetry he has to do. The abstract
poet of that first period of mythology, creating in this
wholly impersonal, intensely spiritual way, the abstract
spirit of poetry itself, rises before the mind, and in speaking
of this poetical age the critic must take heed before all
things not to offend the poets."
The poets, then, and Apollo, or the personified spirit of
poetry, form our court of final appeal which sits upon the
loftier peak of Parnassus, and judges all matters of vital
concern to the gods in Greece and to Greek religion.
With this proviso it may be said that Apollo s was the only
authority which really swayed Olympus. When, however, a
more extended power ove r all the other gods is attributed
to Apollo, the fact becomes so nearly a fact of poetry, that
the statement of it in prose almost deprives it of its truth.
Let there be, then, an appeal to some poet. Hear an echo,
a translation from the sweetest strains divine of poet
Aristophanes :
"Come to me, partner mine," sings the hoopoe to the
nightingale, "cease from slumbers, unloose the flights of
sacred songs, that through thy lips divine dost wail, for
mine and thine, for Itys of many tears trilling and shrilling
in the liquid melodies of thy tawny throat. Pure ascends
through the greenwood thicket their echoing refrain even
unto Zeus s throne, where golden-haired Phoebus, giving
attentive ear and making responsive music to thy mournful
lays, upon his lyre of ivory wrought, marshalls the dances
of the gods. Lo ! from deathless lips proceed the while
concordant with thy strains most heavenly acclamations from
the blessed gods." Here was no place for father Zeus to
interfere ; like all the other gods, he too obeyed Apollo, and
I SANCTIONS OF APOLLO S POWER 29
followed after Phoebus, leader of the dance. Delphian
Apollo was mightier in song and in prophetic wisdom than
even Zeus himself. The poet s poet-god wielded the sceptre
of poetry and gave his law to all the gods in Greece. 1
After all is said and done such rule and right to guide
as attached to Apollo among other gods belonged to him
by divine right of righteousness, and has the final sanction
of a sense of tolerance and fair dealing conspicuous in the
justice of Apollo s acts and the generosity of what he
abstained from doing. His rule was based upon a truly
poetical sense of right and wrong. Had he not been
generous and broadly tolerant of powers and pretensions
which prosaic minds and gods of prose would certainly
have resented and opposed, he never could have prevailed
at Delphi. It was this supremely poetical quality in the
Delphian god, his possession, so to speak, of imagination,
which enabled him serenely to contemplate and wisely to
further the welldoing of other divinities and of various
worships often seemingly the rivals of his own. The best
instance of this Delphian tolerance of Apollo is in the
union of Apollo and Dionysus at Delphi itself, and in the
cordial and useful support given by Apollo s Delphian
oracle to the propagation and elaboration of Dionysus
worship elsewhere, particularly in Attica. Like Apollo,
Dionysus was a poet-god and a giver of oracles, an inspirer
of the souls, and a possessor of the bodies of men. And yet
1 This is a very different primacy from that primacy of fear attributed
to Apollo in the Homeric Hymn. The difference may serve as a measure
of the advance in nobility of religious thought made by the Greeks under
the leadership of great and deeply religious thinkers like Euripides, Plato,
and Pindar. And yet something of the later strain of Apollo is heard in
the prayer of Glaucus, Iliad, xvi. 514 ff. : "Hear, O Lord, who art
somewhere in Lycia s rich land or in Troy ; for thou canst hear in every
place when a man is in grief such as now is the grief that is on me."
30 INTRODUCTION i
Dionysus and Apollo went hand in hand through all the
length of Hellas.
Another way of stating the case would be to say, as has
recently been done, and most truly, that one great reason
for the prosperity and renown of the oracle and temple at
Delphi was the cleverness shown by Apollo s priests in
combining and maintaining with equal hand the various
cults of various divinities that centred there. But this way
of counting those who may in some sense have been wire
pullers as wire-pullers only, of counting their manoeuvres
for everything, and the reality of the cause for which their
work was done for nothing, leads nowhere. It is profitless,
because falsehood always lurks in the reasoning of those
who, from the heights of imagined superiority, look down
upon the great religion of a great epoch in the world s
history, deeming it a sheer delusion through and through.
Thank Heaven ! we can let the eighteenth century have all
for its own that canting talk about the "trickery of priests."
No vital religious fact was ever materially affected by the
trickery of priests, and it is no accident therefore, but a
deeply significant fact in the course of Greek mythology
and the history of Greek religion, that Apollo and Dionysus,
the sublime and the intense, dwelt together in unity before
the eyes of those who came and worshipped at the moun
tain shrine of Delphi.
"Apollo, ivy-god and prophet bacchanal" 1 cries Aeschylus,
sublimest of the singers at Dionysus Attic theatre, giving
to Apollo the characteristic insignia of Dionysus. "Lord
Bacchus , lover of the laurel tree"* 1 says Euripides, lending
1 Fr. 394, cf. Macrobius, Saturn. 18, 6.
2 Macrobius, ibid. : Euripides in Licymnio, Apollinem Liberumque
unum eundemque deum esse significans, scribit " dtcnrora &lt;j&gt;i\6da.(pve
Bd/c%e, Ilcuaj "AirdXXov
i APOLLO S TEMPLE AT DELPHI 31
Apollo s sacred laurel bough to Dionysus for the nonce.
Traditions kept alive in far-away places show the brother
hood of these two gods of poetry. In one place record
was preserved of it by a worship of Apollo under the
special epithet of "one sent by Dionysus." 1 In popular
pictures, such as decorated vases, the ivy often crowns not
Dionysus but the slenderer Apollo. The Muses, repre
sented as Apollo s attendants upon the front pediment of
his great Delphian temple, are frequently given in popular
pictures to be the companions of Dionysus, who also bor
rows very often his brother Apollo s lyre. To close these
instances with the strongest proof of the good fellowship
and mutual tolerance between them as conceived by their
worshippers, consider the western pediment or gable of
the great temple of Apollo just before mentioned. To
correspond to Apollo and the Muses of the other, this
pediment presented Dionysus and his Thyades, his maenad
band of bacchanalian women. The temple being that of
Apollo, Dionysus still could be made most prominent, since,
like Apollo, he was an inspirer of song.
Many other reasons, but especially the date of this
Delphian temple, built in the middle of the sixth century
B.C. by Spintharus of Corinth, indicate how early this
bond of brotherhood between Apollo and Dionysus
received conspicuous sanction from the Delphian priests
and in Greece at large. Within the temple, just in the
Holy of Holies, where the golden statue of Apollo stood,
was a tomb of Chthonian Dionysus, not far from the
rounded stone that marked the absolute centre or
"navel" of the earth. This last was flanked by two
golden eagles, 2 for it was well known that Zeus sent forth
1 At ovvffb Soros, Pausanias, I. xxxi. 4. 2 Appendix XI. i. 126.
32 INTRODUCTION i
two of his own imperial birds one from the north, the
other from the south, and the fact of their meeting just
in this spot, and perching on either side of this parti
cular stone, witnesses that Delphi is at the centre of the
world. This original meeting was commemorated by the
two golden eagles set up upon the spot and sanctified
to Apollo. Another feature of this shrine that goes
to prove that it was no ordinary sanctuary of Apollo,
but rather a meeting ground for many worshippers of
many divinities, was an altar to Poseidon, the shaker of
the earth, which was anciently erected and always main
tained.
Such points as these, and others to be gained from
Pausanias description of the great Delphian temple, show
how much may be learned from excavations on this site.
To make excavations at Delphi will be a glorious task for
any to whom it may be allotted, and would indeed be a
fitting continuation of the work which our countrymen,
inspired and directed in those days by Dr. Merriam, a
scholar of whose great attainments and sound judgment
America is proud, have already done among the Attic
mountains at Icaria. But the friends of the American
School of Classical Studies at Athens have not forgotten
that it is the youngest but one of the four schools there
established. 1 Therefore they will not sorrow but rejoice if
the first established of all schools at Athens, the French
School, with its well established traditions and a liberal
grant from the Government, carries out work so well begun
1 Rumour has it that the Italians are about to add theirs to the four
established already. Those who are familiar with the organisation of
excavations in Italy and know the Italian system of local reports will under
stand the gain to Greek archaeology which an Italian School at Athens
must bring.
I HISTORY OF DELPHIAN WORSHIP 33
at Delphi by M. Homolle and M. Foucart. 1 What could
not be done with a sufficient grant of money by a School
that accomplished with next to no money at all the excava
tions and investigations at Delos which have made us all
M. Homolle s debtors ? 2
A disentangling of the relations between Apollo and the
other Delphian gods, some of whom seem to have pre
ceded him and to have been eclipsed by his arrival, will
perhaps be possible in the future. But this can only be
when much work upon the site shall have yielded many
new inscriptions. With only such knowledge as is now
available, contained, be it said, in an admirable paper
recently published by Professor Middleton in the Journal
of Hellenic Studies? it seems possible to say little with
positiveness. It is not, however, rash to declare even now
that the terms upon which Apollo s worship finally obtained
supremacy at Delphi are likely to have enlarged the final
range of his influence. The compromises involved in his
first coming no doubt begot in him a wide and tolerant
strain.
With the earlier history of worship at Delphi is bound up
the growth and increase of the great power that made for
order in Olympus and began to bring into the religious
ideas of Greece a spirit of reasonableness if not of logic.
Just as the highest ideal of poetry, the work of a poet s poet
like Dante, presents the universe as an ordered whole, so
the highest and really most supreme divinity in that poetry
of poetry, Greek religion, will be Apollo on Parnassus, the
poet s god of poetry, seeking to organise, to make reason-
1 Foucart, Ruines et Histoire de Delphes, 1865.
2 See chap. viii.
3 See the Journal for 1888, vol. ix. p. 282.
D
L
34 INTRODUCTION i
able, and justify the worship and the ways of all the gods in
Greece, and to present the world of Olympus as an ordered
whole.
This was accomplished chiefly by oracular responses.
A constant interchange of influence is perceptible in the
relations between Delphi and Athens. When the hitherto-
despised Dionysus -worship was brought into honour at
Athens and no longer hidden in the country denies, the
influence of the Delphian oracle of Apollo was one of the
determining forces that wrought the change. It is certain
that the Delphian oracle sanctioned and promoted just at
this time an additional worship of Dionysus not known of
old to the country denies of Attica. Under this new aspect
from abroad, Dionysus was known as the god of Eleutherae,
a town on the frontier towards Boeotia. His worship was
characterised by moderation, and Pegasus, his high priest
of Eleutherae, is associated with the practice of tempering
the strength of wine with water. Accordingly the Dionysus
of Eleutherae was not the awful Dionysus of the nether
world, not the "angel of the darker drink," but Dionysus
the Saviour, who came to show men, tired and dazed by his
orgies, how they might make themselves clear -eyed once
more and have untroubled hearts as they betook themselves
again to their wonted avocations.
By such a mitigation of the more outrageous features in
the rude and early Attic worship of Dionysus did Apollo
repay that god who had made place for him when he came
to Delphi. Of that coming Euripides gives a beautiful
picture in his Taurian Iphigenia : " Sweet was the babe of
Leto born, Phoebus, a god with golden hair. Borne by
Leto, on he came unto Parnassus, whose peak leaps in the
bacchanalian dance that honours Dionysus. There of
THE COMING OF APOLLO 35
mottled hue and glance wine -flashing lurked a dragon,
shaded by laurel leafage ; sheathed as in brass, Earth s
monstrous portent guarded the seat of nether -world
prophecy. Him didst thou slay, a mere babe though thou
wert, Phoebus, and didst enter in to possess it the seat
of oracles most divine, and now thou art throned on thy
tripod all-golden, even thy throne unacquainted with false
hood, rendering there unto mortals thy prophecies that
ascend from beneath the divine Holy of Holies close
to the streams of Castaly, in thy house at the midpoint
of earth." The dragon slain, here alluded to, is the Pythian
monster. Him and all the oracles rendered by earth
at Delphi Apollo caused to disappear by the irresistible
power of his coming. All that was antagonistic to Apollo
Euripides here looks upon as evil. Perhaps he thought
of it as embodying all the unpitying relentlessness of the
earlier and inhuman phase of Greek religion, against which
his own poems are a dramatised protest. The good that
existed in local rites was not affrighted by Apollo s coming.
The dawning sun-god, lately born of Leto on that miracle
of the Grecian seas, the holy isle of Delos, could banish
none of the powers of light ; only darkness fled before his
rising.
This coming of Apollo to Delphi, this dawning of the
light in which we see revealed the highest and the best
that worship could inspire in Greeks, and wherein we learn
to know the loftiest characters and characteristics among
the gods in Greece, may fitly be associated with another
song of Euripides, sung by Ion at the open door of his
father Apollo s Delphian temple :
" Lo from his gleaming chariot drawn by coursers four
the sun now flashes light far down to earth ; the stars in
36 INTRODUCTION i
flight are swiftly plunged into holy night by the fires of
day. Parnassus peaks untrodden, bathed in its radiance,
receive for men below this wheel of day. Meanwhile the
smoke of parched frankincense and myrrh wings its way
upward to Phoebus roof. Yea, and a woman on the thrice
hallowed tripod is sitting, the Delphian one, singing forth
such sounds for Greece even as Apollo s voice proclaims."
This tripod at Delphi was the symbol of Apollo s prim
acy on earth ; at Athens and in Attica the same tripod was
awarded as the victor s prize in the tragic and the dithyram-
bic 1 contest. The winner always consecrated it to Dionysus.
Thus may the tripod, so constantly present on the Delphian
coins and in all manner of Greek religious pictures, stand
for one of the most vital facts in the Greek world : the
unison of Apollo and Dionysus in concordant rule upon the
double peak of Delphian Parnassus.
1 It was certainly awarded for tragic victory at Icaria, and as certainly
for dithyrambs at Athens, where it was probably also given for tragedy.
APPENDIX I
THE DEIFICATION OF ROMAN EMPERORS
ROMAN imperialism has not usually been judged upon its
merits. Perhaps this would have been otherwise if Julius
Caesar, the first and in many ways the greatest of the
emperors, had lived longer. But his heir Augustus was a
man of other mould. His whole effort was to persuade
Rome and the Romans that their worn-out commonwealth
and all its antiquated simplicity of religion was still surviv
ing. He wished to be supreme without seeming so, to
govern but not to reign. This masquerading scheme had
a marvellous success, and here is one reason why the new
religious sanction of Roman imperialism, the deification of
the emperors, has not as yet been very generally under
stood as it deserves to be. The senate, before Julius
Caesar died, ordered the institution of worship in his honour ;
and, if the report of Dio and Zonaras were considered
more than a misconception of Cicero s mocking allusion,
they styled him Jupiter Julius. 1 However that may be,
1 See Dio Cassius (44, 6), for the completes! account : KCU rAos Ala
e avrbv dvTiKpvs Iov\iov irpoffi^ydpevaav, Kal vabv ai/ry T ?7 T
avrov Tefj.evKTdTJva.1 tyvwffw, iep^a ff&lt;pt(ri rbv AVT&VLOV, ticrirep nva. did\iov,
rrpoxfi-piffdfjt.voi ; Zonaras (x. ch. 12, p. 492 A-C) brings in as a climax
to his long list of honours voted and given to Caesar while he yet lived
Ata re avrbv lotfXioj/ Trpoff-rjybpevffav. Cf. Cicero (Phil. ii. 43, no)
Est ergo flamen ut Jovi, ut Marti, ut Quirino, sic Divo Julio M. Antonius?
Cf. Phil. xiii. 19, 41 Cujus, homo ingratissime, flaminium cur reliquisti ?
See Suetonius, Caesar, 76. Since Leunclavius and Fabricius" notes on
38 APPENDIX I
Mark Antony was nominated to be his flamen or master
of sacrifice. But then came Augustus deprecating, so far
as he was personally concerned, the establishment of temples
for the new imperial worship, all but forbidding it in Rome
and barely permitting it elsewhere. He deprecated so con
spicuous a religious innovation in the full glare of publicity
at Rome, but apparently did all in his power to extend a
similar worship in dark corners of Rome itself 1 and in
various parts of the Roman empire. So successful was this
policy of artfully dissimulating the new and artificially reviv
ing the old cults that many of the important sources for
understanding the deification of the emperors are outside
of the known literature of imperial days. Obscure and
fragmentary inscriptions have to be appealed to. Many of
the great men of imperial administration, including some of
the emperors themselves, found it difficult always to take
the new religion seriously; it is therefore not surprising that
men of another day and generation should pass it by un
heeding.
And yet, if a close connection between religion and
morality can be taken for granted, a new religion was required
to give sanction to the new morality of imperial days, and
this religion finds expression in the Augustan poets. In a
the passage in Dio above cited, the fashion has been to ignore it. Scholars
have dispensed themselves of the trouble required to sift the testimony of
Dio, rejecting it summarily as coming too long after the facts. But see
Dr. R. Wilmans, De Dionis Cassii fontibus, etc., Berlin, 1836, pp. 24
and 25. Speaking of the acta publica, Dr. Wilmans says: "Ex hoc
igitur fonte multae apud Dionem derivandae sunt narratiunculae. " Dio
took his point about Jupiter Julius from the acta publica no doubt. On
such a point Cicero could not afford to be explicit, therefore he was
ironical. See also Hugo Grohs, Der Wert des Geschichtswerkes des Cassius
Dio, etc., Ziillichan, 1884. Livy neglected daily events that happened in
Rome. Dio s merit lies in his account of these, " fiir die Internet sah er
noch (besides what Livy notes) die Geschichte Sueton s und die acta publica
an. " It is evident that his account of honours voted to Caesar is an addi
tional proof that he took pains about daily events at Rome.
1 The genius of Augustus was associated with the Lares Compitales.
See Marquardt (Staatsverwaltung, iii. p. 199), who refers to Ovid (F. v.
145) and Horace (Od. iv. 5, 34), and for a similar worship of the Genii of
later emperors to inscriptions.
THE DEIFICATION OF ROMAN EMPERORS 39
lecture before the Royal Institution on Roman Imperialism,
Professor Seeley contrasts the Republican and the Im
perial ideals of conduct as follows : " Men ceased to be
adventurous, patriotic, just, magnanimous ; but, on the
other hand, they became chaste, tender-hearted, loyal,
religious, and capable of infinite endurance in a good
cause." They cultivated the virtues of the pious Aeneas.
Even though the details of these contrasted catalogues of
virtue may not be to everybody s mind, the fact of a changed
standard must be admitted ; and consequently the religious
alterations, the distinctively imperial innovations in worship,
should be scrupulously investigated and carefully pondered.
From Virgil, and also from Horace, Ovid, and others, we
may learn of the new ideals of this wider and broader day
which transformed even traditional religion in the Roman
dominions. The hearts of the subjects of imperial Rome,
the hopes of the Roman proletariat, were centred not so
much in the old-time Roman religion as in the new-come
reign of peace. The emperors could not, if they would,
escape the homage of their subjects. It was the part of
wisdom not to stifle but to guide this spontaneous zeal,
this uplifting of grateful hearts toward the ideal of a bene
ficent and omnipotent imperial fatherhood. Those ancient
Caesars could as little escape such a worship as can the
modern Caesars of Russia. Therefore it was well to bind
up with the new worship the religious, social, and political
life of various orders and classes, particularly that of the
lower and most numerous class, which was more or less
unprovided for by traditionally existing religious usage and
ceremonial. Certainly a beginning of social and religious
life was absolutely needed for those whom Republican Rome
had left in outer darkness. Without the part assigned in
imperial services to freedmen and small tradesmen the
empire would never have been in so advantageous a posi
tion for reaping the benefits of Christianity as it really was
when the critical moment arrived.
Let us view this imperial service in its relation (i) to
40 APPENDIX I
the earlier religion of Greece and Rome ; (2) to the new
political and religious needs of the hour ; and (3) to the
political, social, and religious needs of a new class of people,
i.e. of a class of people who had hitherto been almost com
pletely ignored.
It is certain that the notion of deifying the emperor or
any human being must have been rooted in previous habits
of mind. No flattery, however base, could on the spur of
the moment have invented just this form of homage with
any chance of securing its adoption. The fact is that it
was not the work of clever men. They had to set their
hands to it in obedience to a popular impulse which they
were too clever to withstand. No one supposes that the
Senate would have done homage to Jupiter Julius of their own
accord. The burst of popular admiration and gratitude which
in Greece required that divine honours should be paid to
Flamininus, 1 was analogous to the enthusiasm felt by the
Roman populace for their benefactor Caesar. Precedents
therefore must be sought in the religion of the people. The
time-honoured worship of the genius of the Roman people or
of Rome had always appealed especially to the people, and
this was naturally and promptly associated with and finally
passed into a worship of the emperor. Was not he their
good genius? the people asked. Even Augustus allowed
himself to be worshipped by circumlocution as " the
clemency of Augustus," and throughout the empire, if not
in Rome itself, were erected, with his officially reluctant
sanction, altars and shrines for Rome and Augustus like the
one on the Athenian Acropolis.
This Athenian homage may serve to recall the history
of deification in Greece, which can be read plainly and had
run a long course before the days of the Caesars at Rome.
In the middle of the Peloponnesian war a gallant Spartan
1 See his life by Plutarch (chap, xvi.), where mention of a survival of
this worship down to Plutarch s time is made. It is interesting to note
that this deification of Flamininus was by the Greeks of Chalcidice, near
neighbours of the Amphipolitans who long before paid divine honours to
Brasidas.
THE DEIFICATION OF ROMAN EMPERORS 41
soldier, Brasidas, died in Thrace while defending Amphipolis
from the attacks of Athens. The enthusiastic Amphipolitans
put Brasidas in the place of their Athenian founder Hagnon,
ordering an altar to be dedicated to him, and bestowing
upon him the other quasi-divine honours usually given by
Greek colonists to the founder. What a hold was gained by
this manner of testifying to the great qualities of a con
temporary is shown by the deification of Lysander, which
took place at the end of this same war. The novelty here
consists in the fact that Lysander received sacrifices and all
the rest of it while he was yet living. Brasidas, on the
other hand, had died before Amphipolis worshipped him.
Thus long before the Ptolemies and the days of Roman
imperialism the Greeks in Asia had capped the climax of
apotheosis for Lysander. So far Rome did not easily go. It
was, in fact, so little habitual at any time to deify a living
emperor that the bare proposal was treated as involving his
" promotion into the next world." There was a moderating
common-sense at Rome which kept this custom half Greek
and wholly Oriental within certain bounds, and associated
it with the reasonable and popular worship of the genius of
Rome.
Such were the Greek and Roman possibilities of which
imperial apotheosis was the enhancement and the realisa
tion. Now a word may be said of the new religious needs
to which this apotheosis gave a measure of satisfaction.
These new needs were felt alike by the higher and lower
orders in the empire, though by the latter most keenly and
consistently. Quintilian, Tacitus, and Pliny may fairly
represent the higher orders. They stood aloof from the
popular religious point of view, and, like many who took
refuge in Stoicism or Epicureanism, rejected much if not
most of the mythology in which the popular mind still
found a religious satisfaction. It is curious, in spite of all
this, to note the way in which Tacitus reports a miracle
performed by Vespasian. He really seems to be willing,
for a moment at least, to recognise a supernatural power in
42 APPENDIX 1
the emperor. 1 Quintilian, without having a systematised
philosophy of his own, talks of a god who is the " father
and contriver of the world," one who "administers" the
universe. 2 Plainly the emperor ruling the Roman world is
the prototype in this case. Quintilian does not think of
the emperor as god, but he thinks of god as the emperor. 3
Pliny, the sceptical naturalist, was especially proud of
being superior to popular religion. Few things awake his
enthusiasm, and his usually limping prose takes sudden
wings only for a moment when he soars toward his god
made manifest, the shining sun, "mind of the universe." 4
But Pliny himself has not wholly escaped the religious
contagion of his time. His thoughts constantly hover
around the person of the emperor ; his illustrations and
explanations are always bringing the emperor in. He calls
Nero the " foe of mankind," and mentions, as it were with
bated breath, that he came into the world feet foremost. 5
Again, after rejecting various superstitions, he exclaims
" The help that man lends to man is god ; this is the way of
glory eternal. This is the way taken by Roman worthies
of old, and this way with heavenly step now goes that
maximus aevi rector (greatest latter-day guide), Vespasian
Augustus, and by his side his children walk." And then
he adds "Of all ways for paying due thanks to men
of great desert, to enrol them as gods is the most time-
honoured." 6
If the new and incalculable power of the Roman em
perors had such a dazzling influence over minds trained
1 Igitur Vespasianus cuncta fortunae suae patere ratus nee quicquam
ultra incredibile, laeto ipse vultu, erecta quae adstabat multitudine, iussa
exsequitur. Statim conversa ad usum manus, ac caeco reluxit dies.
Utrumque, qui interfuere, mine quoque memorant, postquam nullum men-
dacio pretium (Hist. iv. 81). Cf. Ann. iv. 20, where, in the account of
Lepidus and Tiberius, Tacitus represents the favour of an emperor as a
sort of gift of grace, not to be won but allotted by fate.
2 Inst. Or. ii. 16, 12. Cf. ibid. xii. 2, 21.
3 Cf. one of Dante s phrases for the deity, II consiglio che il mondo
governa" (Par. xxi. 71). 4 Nat. Hist. II. vi. 12.
5 Ibid. VII. viii. 45. 6 Ibid. II. vii. 18 and 19.
THE DEIFICATION OF ROMAN EMPERORS 43
by habits of philosophic thought, what must have been the
popular state of mind ? Certain bursts of enthusiasm which
are chronicled, numerous dedications inscribed on stone,
may help us to some conception of this. The successful
career of demagogic and unscrupulous informers gives
further light. No doubt Eprius Marcellus, one of the
ablest and most unscrupulous of these informers, depended
for his backing upon the populace, or he would never have
taken the tone which he did in the Senate. Eprius and
others like him were backed by popular indignation in their
fierce attacks upon those who refused to take the prescribed
oath, "In acta divi Augusti et divi lulii." 1 His motto
was also the people s Pray for good emperors, but take
any you can get and this represented the people s state of
mind.
Among the people who were thus blindly loyal to the
imperial master, were large numbers whose first franchise
connected itself with this new order of things. It is curious
to note as far as the scanty means of information allow
what a seemingly incongruous compound of Asiatic piety and
European bureaucracy gathered around the institution of this
new imperial rite.
In Italy, Sicily, Gaul, Spain, on the Danube, and in
Africa a new class of men sprang into notice. They were
freedmen and small tradesmen, and formed an especial class
or caste, calling themselves Augustales. They had to do
with local celebrations analogous to the Augustalia at Rome.
Furthermore there were provincial meetings of notables.
1 Eprius Marcellus was identified with the new cult since he was one of
the Sodales Augustales (see Henzen s Inscription 5425, quoted in Nipper-
dey s note on Tacitus, Ann. xii. 4). The customary oath, " In acta divi
Augusti et divi lulii" may be insisted upon as a purely secular act, since
it was required as a preliminary to the performance of secular functions
(Ann. iv. 42; xiii. n). Still the use of the word divus certainly involves
a religious attitude toward those to whom it applies. Moreover Tiberius
plainly regarded this sollemne iusiurandum as promoting him to a condition
beyond mortal mishaps, if Tacitus speaks truly (Ann. i. 72) Neque in acta
sua iurari, quamquam censente senatu, permisit, cuncta mortalium incerta,
quantoque plus adeptus foret, tanto se magis in lubrico dictitans.
44 APPENDIX I
Convened for the purposes of the new worship, these
assemblies soon became centres of provincial life, and
played in later Roman days no unimportant political part,
although Christianity deprived them of all connection with
religion.
Such conventions of notables existed in the East as
well as in the West ; but not so the new order of Augustales. 1
In Greece and Asia Minor, and in general wherever the
empire of Alexander had planted the seeds of specifically
Greek political organisation, there was noticeable here and
there a sort of church organisation. The old hieratic term
vewKo/305 (familiar at Eleusis, for example), quite removed at
last from its original meaning of temple-sweeper, got itself
applied rather to whole communities than to individual
men, 2 and is found upon many coins of Asiatic cities where
periodical festivals in honour of deified emperors were held.
There was competition for this privilege of holding high
imperial festivals, for the vewKo/na. 3 Ephesus stood pre
eminent in having had it granted four times. 4 In conjunc
tion probably with these, and certainly with other features
of the imperial worship, there came into existence a board
of ten High Priests for the province of Asia. To take one
Eastern province as an example of many, they were called
Ao-Lapxat, 5 and were necessarily men of substance and posi
tion. They were elected by representatives from various
cities who assembled yearly at Ephesus. Of these ten
Aaridpxai one apparently ranked 6 above all the others, and
1 Although no evidence of the fact is forthcoming, the Augustales prob
ably existed in the free municipia established in the East. But these as
well as the colonies may be neglected in speaking broadly, since they were
not of the East as such.
2 See, in Pauly, Krause s articles " Certamina " and " Neocoroi"; also
his more detailed monograph on the veuKopia.
3 See Tacitus, Ann. iv. 55, where it is plain that something like the
vewKopia is involved.
4 Coins of Caracalla s and of Elagabalus reign bear the inscription
E0e&lt;n u fj.6i&gt;b}v ctTracrcDj/ rerpdm veuKdpwv.
3 For other provinces there were other titles
KctTTTraSoKapx?;?, etc.
G See Marquardt, Rom. Staatsvenvalt. i. p. 513.
THE DEIFICATION OF ROMAN EMPERORS 45
bore either the unqualified title of J^viapx^s, or of
-rijs Ao-i as. He performed functions analogous to those of a
bishop. Thus it came to pass that the chief rallying point
of Paganism in its last battle with Christianity was one of
its very latest phases the worship of Rome and Augustus
elaborated in two ways, one for the West and one for the
East.
II
DEMETER AT ELEUSIS AND CNIDUS
THE worship of Demeter does not agree with war, since she
never used her golden sword l to slay. Remembering, when
wronged even, that she was the giver of good things, she
found comfort to her griefs in blessing all mankind. Such
a goddess had no place in Homer s Iliad \ the whole of its
heroism is alien to her. Other peaceful gods might go to
war, limping Hephaestus might join the force that favoured
Greece, while Aphrodite smiling fought for Troy ; but
neither side claimed Demeter. So far from seeking her aid
were the haughty heroes of Homeric song, that her good
gifts were sometimes even misprized. Ajax defied all who
were mortal and ate of the fruits of Demeter, all whom a
spear-thrust could pierce or a rock could crush and maim. 2
The golden grain in abundance, for which a farmer will
always be thankful, often seemed to those valiant men of
war an unwelcome mark of mortality and weakness, a blot
upon the brightness of undying fame. When the Achaean
host is under a cloud of dust and its burnished helmets and
bristling spears are tarnished, then the poet bethinks him
of Demeter the yellow -haired, where she so often stands
1 Hymn to Demeter, 1. 4. - Iliad, xxi. 76 ; xiii. 322.
ii THE HOME GODDESS OF GRAIN 47
among the winnowers on a farm, parting the wheat from the
chaff that spreads over the brightness of day like the dust
that chokes the Achaeans. 1 Plainly it is rather in moments
of trial and humiliation that the kindly goddess of earth s
fruits is remembered in the Iliad. Demeter had in fact
been left at home when the host set sail for Troy. She
remained among the farms and flowery fields of Thessalian
Pyrasus where was her sanctuary, and its name of Pyrasus 2
came from the abundance of wheat which was her gift.
In the Odyssey, on the other hand, farmers and farming
are looked upon with more interest; and naturally, since
the intense theme of the Trojan war is there exchanged for
a less thrilling but more charming narrative of adventure.
In the Iliad, when nothing is said to the contrary, we may
be sure of fighting ; in the Odyssey, no matter what else is
going on, there is continual feasting. The whole of the last
half of the Odyssey has its scene laid at home among the
farmsteads or in the hall of Odysseus. Unhappily the
domain of Odysseus was no Pyrasus, no wheatland, and
therefore though we become familiar with the domestic
economy of Eumaeus, whose faithfulness to his lord Odysseus
tempts the translator to be absolutely literal and to call him
the "divine swineherd," 3 this brings no mention of Demeter
the home goddess of grain, the Kornmutter or Mother of
Corn. Something of her history may be gathered from
Homer, though he chiefly knows that Zeus was her husband,
and that he slew her beloved lasion, whom she met upon
a thrice-ploughed fallow field of Crete. 4
Homer either did not imagine that Persephone was
1 Iliad, v. 500. Ibid. ii. 695.
3 Mr. Gladstone has recently and truly said that in point of goodness
Eumaeus excels every one of the Homeric gods.
4 Odyssey, v. 125.
48 DE METER AT ELEUSIS AND C NIDUS n
daughter to Demeter, or did not think that the relation,
so ineffably beautiful according to the story which finally
prevailed, had any very great significance. He speaks of
Persephone simply as the daughter of Zeus, 1 whereas the
idea that finally prevailed made Persephone nothing if not
her mother s daughter, 2 and sometimes indeed left a doubt
whether Zeus or Poseidon were her father. It mattered
little to her later worshippers who her father was, since she
became all her mother s, the eternal type of a daughter
dearly loved and lost, sought for in grief and found at last.
But to Homer Persephone was nothing of all this ; she was
the queen of the dead ; 3 dread Persephone. Terror was
in her name, and in spite of the lovelier phases through
which she passed, a word of slaughter can still be heard
when she is named. For Homer she was always to be
feared, 4 a divinity only then to be called glorious when by
so naming her you might forestall some dreadful harm. She
could send forth, from where she ruled among the dead,
that awful Gorgon s head that turned to stone all those
whose eyes it met; her anger was therefore to be feared
and in every way to be appeased. This gloomy picture of
Persephone is drawn in the Odyssey &gt; where she dwells and
queens it in a dusky realm that may be above or below
ground ; the only thing which is certain about it is its situa
tion with reference to the rest of the world. It is a land
far off in the darkness of the west, beyond the twilight of
1 Iliad, xiv. 326 ; Odyssey, xi. 217.
2 Eur. Phoen. 687.
3 Arcadian legends give Persephone the name Afrwoiva (Paus. VIII.
xxxvii.) and her mother is Demeter Erinys. At Eleusis under this aspect
Persephone was named Daeira. See Preller s Greek Mythology.
4 Persephone is called e-jrcuvfi four times in the Iliad and four times in
the Odyssey, where she is also (euphemistically) four times called
and once ayvr].
ii TWO HOMERIC OTHERWORLDS 49
Cimmeria. It is an outer or utter world, not necessarily an
under world.
In the Iliad, on the other hand, we hear of Hades or
Aidoneus, the husband of dread Persephone. So awful
were the abodes where these two dwelt and ruled supreme
that the poet speaks of the disclosure of Hades dominions
to the light of day as a thing too awful almost to mention.
Unlike the far off country of the dead visited by Odysseus,
the otherworld of the Iliad is under men s feet. The
righting of the gods before Troy, Poseidon shaking the
earth, and Zeus filling the air with his thunders, nearly
broke through into the undiscovered country of the dead.
Aidoneus upon his nether throne was filled with fear and
trembled.
It cannot be too often repeated that the Demeter known
to the Homeric poems had no affinity with Persephone in
either of her two realms. According to a flickering tradi
tion we hear that Persephone was deemed by some to be
not Demeter s daughter but a child borne by the dreadful
river goddess Styx. 1 Perhaps if Persephone s mother had
been named by Homer, he would have said she was the
Styx. Anything rather than mother to the queen of death
was Homer s Demeter. She is a goddess of peace and
plenty. For another presence like hers we may look to a
place far nearer home than Greece, to English Northumber
land. Hutchinson says in his history, 2 "In some places
I have seen an image aparelled in great finery, a sheaf of
corn placed under her arm and a scycle in her hand,
1 Apollodorus, Bib I. \. 3, .
2 A View of Northumberland, with an Excursion to the Abbey of
Mailross in Scotland, by W. Hutchinson, Anno 1776, published at New
castle in 1778, vol. ii. p. 17 of the Appendix in the account of Mell
Supper.
E
50 DE METER AT ELEUSIS AND CNIDUS
carried out of the village on the morning of the con
clusive reaping day, with music and much clamour
the reapers into the field, where it stands fixed on a pole
all day, and when the reaping is done is brought home in
like manner. This they call the Harvest Queen, and it
represents the Roman Cerec." Hutchinson might have
added that it corresponded to what we know from Homer
of Demeter, who resembles nothing so much in those
earliest stories as this Harvest Queen of England or the
Corn Lady whose divinity is honoured in Scotland by
hanging up a small package of grain when the reapers have
finished. 1
After the Homeric poems came the works of Hesiod,
but it is uncertain whether all the traditions preserved by
Hesiod and not recorded by Homer are of an origin later
than Homer. In fact they both give us glimpses of
customs and habits of mind as old as time. It is con
venient, however, and not seriously misleading, to think of
the cheerful yellow -haired Homeric Demeter as of one
coming to woman s estate through the deeper experiences
with which Hesiod s poems invest her. Here she becomes
acquainted with grief through her dear daughter Persephone.
Hesiod knows far more of the goddess s kindred than
Homer. Rhea is Demeter s mother and Cronos is her
father ; Zeus is her husband, to whom she bore white-armed
Persephone. Hesiod also has heard, while Homer has not,
of the carrying off of Persephone by Aidoneus. 2 To him
Zeus granted his daughter s hand, and by him Persephone
is seized and carried off in a chariot. Still, Hesiod is not
always very far in his notion of Demeter from the simple
1 Parallels from various country customs are multiplied by Mannhardt,
and also by Frazer in the Golden Bough, 2 Theog. 912,
ii THE GODDESS OF ENOUGH AND TO SPARE 51
and uncomplicated idea of Homer. Demeter the goddess,
crowned with those very fruits which she alone can give, is
famine s foe. " Work, Perseus, make famine your foe and
fair-crowned Demeter your friend." 1 This is Hesiod s
advice to his kinsman.
The Greeks in Sicily worshipped Demeter from the
earliest days, and well they might, since the island of their
homes was so especially favoured by her that it came to
deserve the name of the granary of Rome. One Sicilian
sanctuary was dedicated to Hadephagia, 2 a strange name
indeed until by translation you discover that this object of
Sicilian reverence was simply the Genius of a square meal,
the goddess of Enough-and-to-spare, a divinity much prayed
to even now by cow-boys and many other people who have
long wildernesses to cross, and often fast perforce for many
hours together. At this same Sicilian shrine Demeter herself
was worshipped under the surname of Sito, that is, of
Mother Rye. This Sicilian service paid to Demeter Sito
and to Hadephagia is but the logical outcome of the utili
tarian view of Demeter as famine s foe presented by Hesiod
in his Works and Days^ that oldest of farmers almanacs.
But beyond the simple aspect of Demeter as the giver
of food there lurked in the earliest adoration of her some
thing most solemn and secret. How early Herodotus 3
considered this worship to have come into Greece may be
judged by his story that the daughters of Egyptian Danaus
showed unto the women in Pelasgian days what were the
rites to be celebrated in honour of Demeter. Herodotus is
speaking more especially of the special festival in her
honour called the Thesmophoria, where she was worshipped
as giving sanction to certain Thesmoi or laws upon which
1 Works and Days, 298. 2 Athenaeus, x. 9. 3 ii. 171.
52 DE METER AT ELEUSIS AND C NIDUS \\
the family and other social facts were based. This some
what vague statement of Herodotus is at least sufficiently
definite to show that he regarded Demeter s worship as
among the most ancient forms of divine service. Before
Homer or Hesiod sang, Demeter was ; and the sentiment of
awe which consecrated her goddess and mistress of what
men held most sacred and most dear had existed in Greece
from the very first. Before the poets came, a whole ritual
must have grown up, the significance of which Demeter s
peasant worshippers could not expound. These were men
whose only argument was the observance of times and
ceremonies, and who knew no higher logic than the telling
of a tale about this god or that. 1 Hesiod, who first
chronicles in full their stories of Demeter s parentage, and
who first though briefly mentions the grief that came when
her daughter was stolen away from earth, must surely some
where indicate a deep and solemn view of the fair-haired
Demeter s power upon the lives of men. Of this deeper
view there are traces, though it may be necessary, if we
would clearly understand, to read between his lines.
In place of Homer s phrase, " the fruits of Demeter," 2
Hesiod prefers to speak of "the holy fruits of Demeter." 3
This adjective holy contains a first and half articulated
expression of the mystery and awe which overpowered the
pious adorers at Eleusis when it found its full utterance in
ritual. Another hint is given by Hesiod that throws light
upon this homely farm-religion of the early days in Greece.
1 There is a certain illogical logic about all mythologies. Where philo
sophy leaps at once to abstract terms and speaks of an omniscient, omni
potent, omnipresent deity mythology, aiming at the same notions, proceeds,
agreeably to its nature, by positive imagery in place of negative afo-tractions. "
C. F. Keary, The Vikings, p. 61.
2 Iliad, xiii. 322. 3 Works and Days, 466.
ii THE HALLOWED FRUITS OF DEMETER 53
I mean where he says, in words not always rightly under
stood, that a field new ploughed and newly sown has power
to charm a babe and still his cries. That is, if the babe be
only laid upon it, no doubt. This receives illustration from
various customs not yet extinct in Europe, which bring the
new sowing of seed and the tending and growth of young
babes into one and the same scheme. Hesiod, just after
dwelling upon the above point in regard to stilling young
children, proceeds, " Now make prayer to Zeus and to holy
Demeter, that they may make perfect and heavy of growth
the hallowed fruits of Demeter." 1 Plainly the inscrutable
power which gives and withholds abundance in harvests can
somehow hinder or help the health and growth of a babe.
Every language and every country works out in some way
the old story and utters with a new voice the time-worn
truth that the growth of babes and children is one with the
growth of trees and flowers and grass. 2 All fruitfulness,
every species of multiplication in the land, is linked to that
of every other kind by some mystical bond which makes
one of them all, and binds the growth of men and of things
into a single and continuous scheme. This belief, now
argued out by science and subjected to scrutiny in all its
parts and all its meanings, was represented among the
peoples of all times in a thousand quaint customs of the
countryside, many of which survive among the innocent
and unlearned to-day. Akin to all these customs, but
1 The whole passage runs as follows :
dpovpav
veios aXe^tdpTj Traiduv UKTj\r]Tipa
^X^ffdai 5e v Aii xfloju y, ^r]fj.r]TepL 6 ayvy,
(KTe\ta (3pi6eiv A-rj/j.rjrepos itpbv aKrriv.
Works and Days, 463-466.
2 See Mannhardt s posthumously printed essay " Korn und Kind."
54 DEMETER AT ELEUSIS AND CNIDUS n
fuller of the perfect truth of poetry which is beauty, and
beauty, and once again beauty, was the service of fair-
crowned Demeter in Greece by chosen spirits of Greece,
and when Rome came, in Rome.
Plainly the godhead of Demeter and her kinship with
the queen and king of darkness were bound up somehow
with the deeper and more mysterious suggestions made ever
and anon by Hesiod. Homer knew nothing of all this, and
accordingly Homer knows little or nothing of the real god
head of Demeter. The first complete account of the myth
of Demeter is contained in a poem of later date than the
Iliad) the Odyssey, or the writings of Hesiod. This is the
Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 1 called Homeric not because it
was written by Homer but as the work of some poet versed
in Homeric lore, and its probable date is about 600 B.C. five
hundred hexameter lines written at least 2500 years ago,
which remained absolutely unknown from the fourteenth to
the end of the eighteenth century of our era. Mr. Sidney
Colvin 2 has most aptly described this beautiful poem, and
gives the following account of its substance and style :
" There is nothing liturgical about it ; it is rather in the
nature of a ballad, recited, it may be, by a patriotic minstrel of
Eleusis to the groups of strangers who thronged to the city,
or in competition with other such ballads at one of those
poetical tournaments which formed part, we know, of many
of the Greek religious festivals. I say a minstrel of Eleusis,
because of his special tone of pride in the town and locality,
and because he ignores Athens, while his Ionian dialect
would be quite proper to an Attic rhapsodist. It is their
1 About one hundred years ago Ruhnken received it for publication
from a learned friend who stumbled upon it in an old monkish library at
Moscow.
2 Cornhill Magazine, vol. xxxiii. June 1876, "A Greek Hymn."
THE HOMERIC HYMN TO DEMETER 55
ballad character, and the community they have of style and
diction with the Iliad and Odyssey, which have earned the
title of Homeric for a certain number of Greek hymns or
narrative poems in praise of particular divinities which have
come down to us. This is the most beautiful of them all."
This beautiful Hymn contains, according to the view set
forth below, at least three ballads or stories, and the incon
sistencies and roughnesses in its composition spring from a
too conscientious effort to make the three into one. At the
time when this Hymn was composed, or perhaps we should
say compiled, many interesting facts and fancies about
Demeter and her worship were at the author s command.
The most conspicuous of these are two stories telling
how Aidoneus carried off Proserpina, and of Proserpina s
final restoration to Demeter. One of these may be called
the Iliad story, since it is based upon the Iliad con
ception of the world of death as an underworld. The other
may be called the Odyssean version, since according to it
Persephone was spirited away into the land beyond Cim
merian darkness, whither Odysseus went to talk with dead
Tiresias. Over and above these two accounts of Perse
phone s disappearance and reappearance, that had woven
themselves into consistency upon the lips of men, there
were other tales inextricably connected, now in one way and
now in another, with the two just named, which gave to the
bereavement of Demeter and the robbery of Persephone a
local habitation and a name. These stories may be con
ceived of as having been as numerous as were the temples
of Demeter, but certainly the one that men most heeded
was the one which localised the whole myth at Eleusis in
Attica. Eleusis is about twelve miles from Athens, but the
fertile and extensive Thriasian and Rarian plains, the first
56 DEMETER AT ELEUS1S AND CNIDUS n
one towards Athens, and the second one towards Megara,
surround it and make it a natural home for the goddess of
grain. It is evident that many generations of simple people
on the farms of the Thriasian and the Rarian plains in
Attica had been absorbed in the due worship of the goddess
Demeter. Gradually, in this direction and in that, con
nected accounts of the goddess and of the Eleusinian rites
in her honour grew up and found credence. The most
pleasing and popular of these were woven into one narrative,
which forms the beautiful and yet most bewildering Hymn in
question.
The perseverance of Dr. Wegener has triumphed over
the author of this Hymn to Demeter. What the poet joined
together Wegener has triumphantly put asunder. Too
anxious, like many compilers of religious articles and creeds,
that no one concerned should find cause of offence in his
work, the author, in spite of the poetic exquisiteness of his
touch, left such inconsistencies and patent incongruities that
each tradition can with more or less certainty be disentangled
from the others ; and this is what Dr. Wegener has done. 1
The Iliad story of the carrying off of Proserpina is
briefly as follows : Zeus conspired with Gaia, the earth, to
get Persephone, his child by Demeter, for his brother
Aidoneus to wife. Earth snared the smiling maid by a
most fatal blossom called the narcissus. Persephone
reached forth to pluck the wondrous flower, and lo ! the
ground opened, and Aidoneus dragged the shrieking girl
down to his underworld home. Hecate meanwhile was
sitting in her cave thinking delicate thoughts. She and
she alone could see the robber on his downward way, and
she it was who made haste with the news to Demeter. The
1 Philologus, xxxv. (1876) pp. 227-254.
ii THE WEDLOCK OF PERSEPHONE 57
bereaved mother stands at Zeus s throne and asks for resti
tution. Zeus urges that Aidoneus is a worthy husband for
Persephone. Then Demeter shuns Olympus, and resorts
to the fields and towns of men. She retires into her temple
(at Eleusis), where she passes a whole year. The world is
stricken in all the produce and increase of earth. Zeus,
forced by the cutting off of all fruits, sends Iris first, and
then the other gods. All others fail, and Rhea, Demeter s
mother, last of all goes to her and she makes peace. Zeus
grants a compromise. Two-thirds of the year Persephone
is to stay with her mother and see the glad light of day, but
for one-third of each twelve months, during the sad season
of winter and darkness, the daughter and mother are to be
parted, Persephone is to be with her husband Aidoneus.
Appeased at last, the mother welcomes back her child,
and earth once more covers itself with the holy fruits of
Demeter.
The second version, told in the same breath by the
Homeric author of Demeter s Hymn, is the Odyssean
version, and it must be admitted that the landscape of
Eleusis does not suit the demands of this form of the story
so well as it does the Iliad tale just given, but on the other
hand this account of the story brings in the pomegranate
seed a mystical emblem often seen in the hands of Demeter
and Persephone at Eleusis and elsewhere. There is much
to tempt an unwary person here ; certainly the rash would
incline to pronounce this Odyssean tale the older of the
two. However this question of age be decided, there is no
doubt as to a strong affinity with the Odyssey, not only in
the Odyssean aspect of the tale which has yet to be given,
but in the whole of the poem. Mr. Colvin has descried
and inimitably described the likeness as follows : " It (the
58 DEMETER AT ELEUSIS AND CNIDUS n
Hymn) moves with much of the same easy grandeur as the
Odyssey, it has the same romantic charm, and delights us
with similar pictures of heroic manners, of chiefs trusted by
their people, of beautiful unabashed virgins, of noble hos
pitality to strangers. Like the Odyssey, it tells us of gods
going to and fro among mortals, unrecognised till they
choose; of disguises and feigning answers and sudden
revelations."
And now, to turn from the Odyssean touch in the whole
poem to what has been talked of as the Odyssean version of
the carrying off of Proserpina, that runs as follows : On a
flowery mead close by Oceanus, Persephone is gathering
flowers with the daughters of Oceanus. But a sudden fear
arrives Hades dashes across the flowery field with his
chariot and spirits the maiden away. Zeus knows nothing
of the deed, but is busy in a far off temple accepting
sacrifice from men. The robber king of death meanwhile
drives ever onward toward the darkling West. Persephone
cries ever and anon, but most of all when at the very last of
the weary journey she sees that she must lose the sight of
day. Hades comforts her by telling her of the honours she
shall have as queen among the dead ; and furthermore, that
fate may never take her from him quite, he secretly thrusts
a pomegranate seed into her mouth. Demeter hears her
daughter scream, and rends her garments, and wraps her
shoulders in the garb of mourning. Thus, seeking and ask
ing, for nine days long does she pass over land and sea.
None of Persephone s playmates, not one of all the gods
and men, can tell her who the robber is, or where her
daughter tarries. So therefore she goes to the all-seeing
sun, and he shows to her the utmost regard and kindness.
Filled with pity, he tells her who the robber is, and whither
ii THE ILIAD AND THE ODYSSEAN STORIES 59
Persephone has been carried. Then Demeter in wrath
betakes her to her Eleusinian temple. Zeus meanwhile
hears her wrongs, and sends his messenger Hermes with
instant reprimand, and with command that Hades make
restitution. Hades, the Zeus of the netherworld, made no
retort in anger, but smiled serenely and bade Persephone
do as the word of Hermes commanded. He was sure,
through the fatal seed of the pomegranate which she had
taken, that Persephone would not forsake him utterly.
Hermes accordingly leads her back to her mother, who is
glad of her return, but grieves to find what an unbreakable
spell from Hades is on her.
These two legends are curiously but not at all indis-
tinguishably interwoven through the whole of the first and
the last portions of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. If
in no other material detail, they coincide in taking for
granted the existence of a temple of Demeter. This temple
is not necessarily at Eleusis. Both of these versions would
suit any other centre for the worship of Demeter just as well
or ill as they suit Eleusis, for it is possible to substitute
another name, and thus, so to speak, the venue of the myth
can be changed with the alteration of one word. The
second or Odyssean story lays the scene of the robbery in a
far off land, which is certainly neither Eleusis nor any other
centre of Greek life, and as for the place whither the stricken
Demeter retires, it is simply spoken of as her temple, and
no local details are given, but only the name Eleusis. The
Iliad tale, on the contrary, might be supposed to consecrate
Eleusis, not only as the place where Demeter s temple was,
but as the actual theatre of the robbery of Proserpina. But
Cnidus (whither the story wandered by sea from Thessaly
no later perhaps than it went to Eleusis) would answer just
60 DE METER AT ELEUSIS AND CNIDUS n
as well. The same may be said of any other place where
Demeter was worshipped, and where there was a rock-form
ation suggestive of the rending and yawning of the earth,
and a smiling and fertile plain near by for the flower gather
ing of Persephone. Accordingly neither of these stories of
the carrying off of Proserpina necessarily localises the myth
and worship of the two goddesses, mother and daughter, at
Eleusis. But towards the hundredth line of the Homeric
Hymn a strange thing suddenly happens. Just as the earth
opened when Persephone reached out her hand to gather
the fatal narcissus, so when the reader seeks to follow onward
the narrative thread of Persephone s robbery, woven together
out of two strands, he finds that it becomes tangled suddenly
from one line to the next, and, before he knows it, he is
dragged down to where sorrowing Demeter sits on the
Laughless Stone by the Eleusinian well called Maidenswell.
The way of Persephone s story comes to a sudden chasm,
and a legend of different quality, though not less beautiful,
is disclosed.
This is the purely and most sweetly Attic tale of Deme-
ter s stay at Eleusis. Here we have united together certain
local traditions that grew up at and near Eleusis in the early
days when Athens and Eleusis were on so nearly equal a
footing as independent states, each exercising a local leader
ship, that they with ten others could eventually become the
twelve members of the Attic confederation if it were sure
that this word suited the politics of those earliest days.
This interjected Eleusinian tale of Demeter s stay at Eleusis
gives the needed consecration the only one respected in
those early days to the temple and observances of Demeter
at Eleusis. By this tradition is founded the Eleusinian
claim to be the greatest centre for Demeter -worship in
ii THE ELEUSINIAN LEGEND OF DE METER 61
Greece. This story, however, is not told in one way only
any more than that of Persephone s taking away. Here
again the scrutiny of minute perseverance discovers various
inconsistencies and a double version. As the points of
difference seem less vital here, they shall for the most part
be given in one narrative, while a few matters can be kept
till the end for consideration.
The Eleusinian legend of how Demeter came to dwell at
Eleusis is then substantially as follows : Near a well close
to the Acropolis of Eleusis the sorrowing goddess Demeter
rested from exhaustion, for she had been long in search of
her lost Persephone. What was the name of the well, Par-
thenos (Maidenswell) or Callichoros (Dancewell) ? However
that may be decided, the goddess rested there on the Laugh-
less Stone, the Agelastos Petra. Was Demeter disguised as
an old woman, or was she there in the undisguised majesty
of her divine beauty ? The stories varied ; but in this they
agree, that the four daughters of the king of Eleusis,
Celeus son of Eleusin by name, came thither with pitchers
of bronze that they might draw water from the well. They
question the goddess, who tells them a tale neither plain
nor unvarnished. She has been enslaved by men who
kidnapped her in Crete. 1 When her captor landed at Thori-
1 The use of Crete in this feigned narrative is by some supposed to amount
to a recognition of Crete as an early cradle of the worship of Demeter. It
should, however, be remembered that Crete was the most obvious of places
to mention in any invented tale of seafarers and seafaring. This is
proved by its constant occurrence in feigned adventures in the Odyssey
(xiii. 256 and ff. ; xix. 171 and ff. ), and by the way in which it often creeps
into the Homeric MSS. , either instead of places of less frequent resort or in
addition to them (cf. Odyssey, i. 93, where two verses about Crete are added ;
ibid. 285, where Zenodotus substituted Crete for Sparta ; the same thing
occurs in Odyssey, ii. 214 and 359. See La Roche s critical edition,
Teubner, 1867. Something of the kind is reported at Odyssey, iv. 702).
The real proof of a widespread and very early belief in Crete as one
of the starting-points of the Demeter myth is in Hesiod s localising in
62 DE METER AT RLE US IS AND C NIDUS n
cus in Attica she made her escape under cover of night.
Now she wishes to be taken into service. The girls go to
their mother, Metanira, and return with a message that
she will be welcomed as their brother Demophoon s nurse.
According to one story Demeter, in the undisguised splen
dour of her divinity, dazzled Metanira, the babe s mother,
who arose as if to give the place of honour to the entering
guest, whose more than human skill was required to deliver
the infant Demophoon from the evil spells cast over his life
by a wicked nurse. The other way of telling the tale makes
Demeter none the less a good fairy, only her gentle offices
are given in the disguise of a grief-stricken woman over
burdened with years and misfortunes. Thus disguised she
takes the boy the child of Metanira and Celeus latest born
and gives him the care without which he could never have
been brought to man s estate. Of whatever nature the god
dess s service was, all tales agree in saying that the child grew
apace, without the ordinary food of mortal babes, fondly
cherished upon her immortal bosom and lulled to rest. At
this point a curious turn is taken by the myth, which relates
that Demeter sought to make the boy Demophoon immortal,
and to that end, when all the house was asleep, set him in
the flames. One -night she was watched either by one of
the sisters or by the mother Metanira. Catching sight of
Demophoon in the flames, his indiscreet and misguided
Crete ( Theogony, 969 and ff. ) the commerce between Demeter and lasion,
reported but not localised in the fifth Odyssey, vv. 125 and if. This is
confirmed by a reference to Bacchylides (Bergk, fr. 64), where the rape of
Proserpina is localised in Crete. Common report, however, had it with
equal certainty that Proserpina was carried off from the fertile fields of
Sicily. I think it therefore unjustifiable to appeal to the early poets as
giving an undisputed pre-eminence in Demeter-worship to Cretan tradi
tions. Ariadne a sort of Persephone came from Crete, it will be
remembered, and she has little or no direct connection with Demeter.
See Appendix X.
ii INTERLOPERS IN THE STORY 63
kinswoman screamed aloud, whereupon the goddess, having
laid hold upon him, was moved to sudden anger and let him
fall. The family is awakened, and the women minister to
the affrighted child. Then Demeter takes her departure,
but not, as the previous episode would seem to suggest, in
anger. No ; she waits to give full commands concerning
the building of her temple at Eleusis, and she enters into all
the rites, the orgies, as they were called, which were to be
celebrated in her service there. These commands, accord
ing to one story, were laid by the goddess upon Metanira
and her daughters, who did not call upon Celeus and his sons,
among whom was Triptolemus, until morning dawned.
The intervening hours through all the night were spent by
the women in propitiating the goddess. The alternative
version is that Demeter on the eve of departure spoke to the
women of her worship and its orgies, and then summoned
King Celeus and his sons Triptolemus, Diocles, Eumolpus
and Polyxenus, and gave to them all needful commands for
the building of her temple and the institution of her
service.
As points of divergence arose, they have been indicated
in the above summary of the Eleusinian story of Demeter.
Two main versions there plainly were, but even after
making allowance for such a variation, there remain diffi
culties to be cleared up. First of all the whole story of
Demeter s seeking to make Demophoon immortal by im
mersing him in fire seems incongruous and incomprehens
ible. This fact, taken together with the identity not only
in substance of the account of the fire-baptism of Demophoon
by Demeter, and one preserved elsewhere 1 of the fire-baptism
1 Apollodorus, Dibliotheca, iii. 13, 6. Compare the account of Demo-
phoon s fire-baptism given also by Apollodorus, i. 5, 4. The story suits
64 DE METER AT ELEUSIS AND C NIDUS n
of Achilles attempted by his mother Thetis and foiled by his
father Peleus, removes one difficulty. The whole fire episode
was probably imposed upon this story ; it has no place there,
at least not in the form in which it has been transmitted.
And this smooths the way for clearing the second difficulty.
It is plain that there is a surplus of proper names here.
The king of Eleusis, in whose house Demeter tarried, is
not in all accounts of the myth called Celeus. Panyasis l
names the Eleusinian king Eleusis or Eleusin, 2 whereas in
this Homeric Hymn the king is Celeus, and his father s name
is Eleusin. Moreover the youthful hero worshipped at
Eleusis, and especially in the Rarian plain near by, as
Demeter s favoured child, whom she had instructed in
the arts of farm labour, is Triptolemus, not Demophoon.
This circumstance would lead us to expect Triptolemus to
take Demophoon s place in the story of Eleusis given in the
Homeric Hymn, and such is the case in what are considered
later, but may represent earlier versions of it. 3 Now if from
the Homeric Hymn be subtracted the fire-baptism of Demo
phoon, there is nothing left for Demophoon in all the story.
It looks as if Demophoon and his father Celeus were
interlopers in this Eleusinian tale, and it is not im
possible that their presence here may be a chapter of early
Achilles, and does not suit Demophoon. Thetis wished to make him
immortal by burning out the mortal part which he had from his father.
We are not told how the thrusting of Demophoon "like a torch into fire"
was supposed to make him of mortal father and mortal mother superior
to mortality. Furthermore Achilles never tasted mother s milk, and
hence his first name was Ligyon. A point is made of Demophoon s not
taking the breast, but nothing remarkable comes of it. The whole
Achillean fire-legend loses reality in the alien story of Eleusis.
1 Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, i. 5, 2 (where Pherecydes is quoted as saying
Eleusis was a son of Oceanus and Ge. In these tales Eleusis figures as
Cecrops and Cychreus do at Athens and Salamis) ; Hyginus, Fab. 147.
2 Cf. Pausanias, I. xxxviii. 7, end.
3 Hyginus, Fab. 147, who was followed bv Ovid.
ii CELEUS AND DEMOPHOON 65
religious history in disguise. Supposing the religious im
portance of Phliasian Celeae l to have been overshadowed
and all but clean forgot in very early days, we should
then have a survival of it if the local hero of Celeae was
Celeus. Accordingly the supposition would be that, before
Eleusis and its legends completely won the day, there was
an interregnum, a period when neither Eleusis nor Celeae
nor Andania 2 had appropriated exclusively the story of
Demeter s sorrows upon earth. What variety of names and
episodes there may have been in all these rival tales cannot
be known. But the uncertainty of many of the important
proper names in the Attic story as it has reached us is
most significant. For Metanira some give Cothonea ; 3 the
name Demophoon crowds Triptolemus Demeter s real
favourite into the position of an elder brother; and
Celeus is invited into the Eleusinian story of Demeter,
taking the place of Eleusin, who becomes his father. Celeus
could easily (in a compromise-version) fill the unimportant
place of the child s father Eleusin in the narrative, but it
was not so easy to supplant Triptolemus, a local demi-god
whose worship was almost on a par with that of Demeter
herself. This is the reason why Demophoon appears in
this story only to disappear, and indeed there is very little
beyond the record of a Demophoon, son of Theseus, to
show where Demophoon came from. 4 Of him we have but
the name, though it is certain that in some early story he
played a leading part, for the name reappears in Euripides
1 Pausanias, II. xiv. 2 Ibid. IV. iii. 10.
3 Pausanias (I. xxxviii. 3) says that Pamphos " Kara ravra Kal "O^pos "
calls the daughters of Celeus, Diogenia, Pammerope, and Saisara. These
names are unknown in our Homeric poems.
4 Hyginus tells of the nine journeys to the shore near Amphipolis
in Thrace of Phyllis, betrayed by Demophoon, Fab. 59. Cf. Ovid,
Her. ii.
66 DEMETER AT RLE US IS AND C NIDUS n
Heradidae^ where a Demophoon figures as king of Athens,
and indeed elsewhere frequently but with no defined asso
ciations. The original Demophoon, unlike Celeus, could
hardly have belonged to Celeae.
The composer of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter
escaped some embarrassment by leaving out entirely the
great Eleusinian myth of Triptolemus. The record of
this, which has been preserved, is chiefly in the shape
of pictures and a few fragmentary lines of poetry from
a lost play of Sophocles. Plainly Triptolemus, the hero-
prince of Eleusis, was adopted by Demeter; he was her
son in whom she was well pleased, and through whom
she granted to men all manner of good things above and
beyond what it was his especial province and privilege
to give, the boon of plenteous grain, and the knowledge
needed for its planting and due preservation. 1 Temples
were built and altars established for the grateful worship
of Triptolemus, the especial favourite not of Demeter
only but also of Persephone. Especially sacred to him was
the plain where first he showed men how to plant and
plough, the Rarian plain, which was set apart as holy
ground for ever, and from which was derived the grain for
making the cakes offered up in the Eleusinian temples.
Its produce came as a part of the revenue of the Eleusinian
temple of Demeter, and one of the peculiar duties of the
priests in charge at Eleusis was to keep this plain of Tripto
lemus free from all pollution.
Thus by examining closely the Homeric Hymn more
1 Whether, as I have perhaps too positively suggested above, Triptolemus
should play Demophoon s vacated part in the Demeter myth is another
question. On this whole point M. Lenormant s article " Ceres," in Darem-
berg and Saglio s Dictionnaire des antiques grecques et romaines, may
be profitably consulted.
ii WOMAN S LOVE FOR WOMAN 67
even than a phase of the religious activity of the early Attic
mind has come to light. Stories grouped themselves about
Demeter at Eleusis which first revealed the greatness of
the goddess herself, next the bond between her and her
child Persephone. With this was involved the worship of
Aidoneus more or less identified with the local hero
Eubouleus and Persephone, rulers in the undiscovered
country of the dead. Quite unexpectedly at the end of the
story, where the immemorial observances in Eleusinian wor
ship are receiving sanction and institution from Demeter, it
is borne in upon the attentive reader that Demophoon and
Triptolemus do not belong to the same group of local
traditions, and thus a glimpse at the local history of early
Eleusis and of some neighbouring shrine, say its Pelopon-
nesian neighbour Celeae, is given. Furthermore Triptolemus,
and perhaps, in his own forgotten story at home, Demo
phoon also, represent the beneficent influence of Demeter
the mother of corn and the goddess of beautiful abundance.
This beneficence of hers, this overflowing generosity in
her nature, provides for more than creature comforts, it
makes for what is highest and best in home existence and
civilised life.
One noticeable touch of poetic truth in the story of
Demeter at Eleusis is the way in which woman s love and
care and need for woman are portrayed. When Demeter is
sitting all forlorn the daughters of Celeus come upon her,
cheerful and careless maidens sent forth to fetch water.
The spectacle of self-forgetful sorrow which the goddess
presents seems to transform them ; they ask her why she
tarries in so lonely a place, quite aloof from the town. She
ought to be in some home, they urge, for there in the
shadowing halls dwell women of her age and older too.
68 DEMETER AT ELEUSIS AND CNIDUS n
They will be kind in word and in deed. Such is the tender
promise of consolation which the maidens give, and the
promise is fulfilled ; Demeter is as much loved as she her
self is loving in the house of Eleusinian Celeus, her home
on earth. Through the whole story men are kept in the
background. lambe, the wayward daughter of the house,
cheers Demeter with her gibes, and Metanira refreshes her
not with wine, but water perfumed with herbs and made
more strong and sweeter for the tired taste with barley.
Demeter is thus made whole by her own bounteous gift of
grain. Silent and eloquently sad was Demeter, as she
moved with the gentle maidens towards their home. Not
a sound was heard as they went, nothing save her footfall
and the dulled rustle of her heavy raiment, dark with the
colour of mourning. Ministered to at last by these kindly
womenfolk she smiled, she laughed, and her spirit was glad
within her.
This pathetic picture lends a divine sanction, as it were,
to the need which woman in trial has for kindly women,
and throws light upon one whole side of the worship of
Demeter. For Demeter, as the upholder of the ties of
marriage, was called Thesmophoros, and a festival in her
honour called the Thesmophoria was celebrated by women
and women only. To this worship some of the very
noblest aspects of the Eleusinian service would seem to be
allied. In his little -known picture of the Women at the
Thesmophoria, Aristophanes has made abundantly merry at
the expense of Demeter s Thesmophorian woman s festival,
but for all that it remains more than ever sacred.
How is it possible to translate into modern words the
pious aspirations of the old-time farmers who worshipped
Demeter at Eleusis? How can the divinity of Demeter
ii DEMETER S LOVE FOR PERSEPHONE 69
be made comprehensible or even plausible to us ? Perhaps
not at all, but yet there is a charm in the goddess s simple
story of trial and triumph through sorrow that seems to
claim the hearts of men, no matter how alien to Greece
their birth and breeding may chance to be. The central,
the efficacious and communicable grace of Demeter s story
is the love she bears Persephone. This is a home tie, and
through this Demeter becomes the home goddess. It
sometimes seems that the whole range of ideas dwelt upon
in Demeter s service by Greeks is covered by that beautiful
and nobly, broadly English word harvest -home. Under
the mastery of the home impulse, of love for her own, the
great goddess s whole beneficent nature gradually unfolded
itself. If you should say that Aphrodite l loved to be loved,
I might by way of contrast maintain that Demeter asked
only and chiefly to love, to lavish her care and minute pains
upon some one who needed protection.
The daughter thus beloved of Demeter was a wondrous
creature, in no way resembling that dread Persephone of
Homeric song. A child of Demeter and not of the awful
Styx, her face bears the look of a flower freshly opened.
The gentle and shyly smiling curves of her lips show the
lines sometimes seen in blossoms, delicately closed because
the day is done. The maiden s only care is for flowers, and
the unmeasured love of her mother is her shield against all
harms, until the fatal hour when Hades comes and robs
her of the pleasant light of day, snatching her away from
joy in flowery things. There is an almost adequate repre
sentation of Persephone the flower maiden, the dear and
delicate child in whom dwelt the graces, the perfumes and
1 For a further presentation of the relation between these two divinities
see chapter vii. below, on Aphrodite at Paphos, near the end.
70 DEMETER AT ELEUSIS AND C NIDUS n
the colours, all that earth shows forth in all the lilies of
all her fields. This representation is a statue of whitest
Parian marble, so small that were it less perfect it would
be what Mr. Pater so prettily calls it, the merest toy.
This wondrous figure was found by Sir Charles Newton
within the sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone one of
their most ancient sanctuaries, that of Cnidus on the
Triopian promontory in south-west Asia Minor. The
first and untried loveliness of a maiden unacquainted as yet
with grief and untested by the world has passed into this
most delicate Praxitelean work.
No greater contrast can be imagined than that between
this statue of Persephone and another found near it, and
like it to be seen now in the British Museum. This second
statue is possibly that of an aged and careworn priestess of
Demeter. But at the same time in it we have before us
the embodiment of Demeter herself, as she was in act of
going sad and despairing to the house of Celeus. Upon
this speaking marble the unwitting artist, under the uncon
scious inspiration of the sad sweet story, has set the
impress of sorrow, and with it a touch of that remembrance
of happier things, which is "sorrow s crown of sorrow."
Here truly is the goddess Demeter, 1 in outward semblance
like her priestess, a stricken woman well advanced in years,
1 See M. Lenormant in his article " Ce"res" above referred to : " On
parle d une De me ter Fpcua (Hesych. s.v.} ou vieille femme ; ce surnom
fait allusion a la forme que la de esse avait prise en arrivant a Eleusis et
pendant son sejour dans la maison de Celeos. II semblerait en re"sulter
que Ton a quelquefois adore 1 , et par suite repre sente De me ter sous ce
de"guisement emprunte". M. Newton (Discov. at Halic., etc., p. 399),
M. R. Foerster (Raub der Kara, p. 248), et M. Heuzey (Monum. de
I Assoc. des Etudes Grecques, p. 10), ont me me cru reconnaltre la De me ter
Graia dans une statue de vieille femme en pied, d un travail fort remar-
quable et d un accent tres e leve , qui provient des ruines du sanctuaire des
grandes dresses a Cnide (Newton, op. cit. planche Ivi.) "
ii DE METER S RULES FOR RIGHT LIVING 71
but noble in her mien. The folds of her apparel, the eager
forward leaning of her head, tell of vain seeking and un
availing grief. Here stands the mater dolorosa mourning
for her child. But somehow hers is not a passive woe, for
her there is still room for hope. There is therefore a
strenuousness in Demeter s sorrow unlike the total self-
surrender to grief of many sweet portrayals of the fainting
Mother Mary at the Cross.
For Demeter there was still hope, and while she waited
all her sorrow and the fruitlessness of her search only
served to bring into active life and motion her impulse to
do good. Many a home has been blessed and cheered by
some such selfless presence as was sorrowing Demeter s at
Eleusis. Deprived of the home love, and of the light of
her sweet daughter, Demeter became the good fairy and
the friend of the Eleusinian home of Celeus, the faithful
and all-wise nurse and instructress of the son of the house,
and through them the devoted friend and helper of all the
homes of men on earth. 1 For Triptolemus, with the know
ledge of agriculture, gave the laws of Demeter to men.
These, the goddess s rules for right living, were no doubt
preserved, with momentary glimpses at one of the most
elevating of the many beautiful myths of early Attica, by
Sophocles in his lost play called Triptolemus. We almost
see the kindly goddess appearing on the scene and giving
her beneficent injunctions to young Triptolemus, for a
learned expounder of the eleventh Olympian Ode of Pindar
quotes from the play, which lay open before him, these
solemn words, " Set my commandments on the tablets of
1 Ovid brings out the human side of the story by an artifice used in
Euripides Electro.. He discrowns Celeus, and brings Demeter to a poor
man s home.
72 DEMETER AT ELEUSIS AND CNIDUS n
thy heart." But we really know nothing except that these
words occurred in the play. The sacred words may have
been given by Demeter to Triptolemus, or quoted from her
by Triptolemus to some favoured man. It would be best
of all to know what the commandments were. Perhaps
some notion of their import is contained in the Pythagorean
rules of life which Porphyry 1 puts into the mouth of
Triptolemus.
"Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother, thou
shalt make glad the gods with offerings, and do no wanton
harm to beasts." Upon some such commandments as
these Demeter based her laws, and the penalty for disobey
ing them was a withdrawal of her favour and a denial of
all her good gifts. Our own Jewish fifth commandment is
not very different from Demeter s, which required men to
honour their parents in order that the earth might yield
her increase. Before Demeter gave her gifts, wretched
men, so say the poets, were forced to live upon acorns.
The Demeter who preserved the homes and hearths of
men from want, and sanctified the bonds of family life, was
a noble type of divine womanhood, above and beyond all
other types that Greek men worshipped, and the noblest of
the three great Cnidian statues found by Sir Charles New
ton is undoubtedly a representation of this Demeter.
Mother of peace and giver of plenty, there she sits, the
Lady Bountiful and Beautiful of Greece. Her gaze is now
at last more nearly serene, but in it there is sadness as
a memory of past sorrows. 2 The goddess has made her
1 De Abstin. iv. 22.
- As I see this statue, the sadness of its look is not overpowering.
Hence I venture to differ from those who see in it Demeter Achaia, the
mother of lamentations, so to say. If I understand Mr. Pater aright, I
see it as he does.
ii DE METER OF CNIDUS 73
peace with evil and the power of death, and takes joy in
such sweet communion with her child as the fates allowed.
It would be too much to say that this Demeter smiles, but
cheerfulness lurks half suppressed about her mouth, just as
in her attitude there is relief and great repose in spite of
something that seems almost to be constraint. A curious
mingling of opposites there is both in her posture and her
face. A cheerful look that tells of mystery and wherein lurks
the memory of woe, a contradiction, as it were, between
her eyes that are not glad, and the lower lines of mouth
and chin that are not sorrowful. A posture of evident rest
and yet an impression of bashfulness and almost of hesit
ancy. These contrasting expressions existing side by side,
hard to seize and harder still to describe, together with the
manner of holding the head, and the .uneasy grace with
which the limbs are disposed, are seen alike in the Demeter
and the Persephone of Cnidus which are attributed to the
Praxitelean School. There both mother and daughter are
marked by these same family traits, a shyness which goes
with all natures delicately noble and free from self-seeking,
that shyness which men learn by wandering much alone,
and musing oft when only the trees and the streams, only
the green earth and her fruitful fields, are there to sym
pathise and understand.
On many vases and in some bas-reliefs it is hardly
possible to distinguish Demeter from Persephone. This is
as it should be according to the worship rendered them at
Eleusis. Excepting in her days of thoughtless youth, before
her trial came, Demeter s Persephone is Demeter s self
twice told. During the third of every year, the wintry
season when Persephone was the unwilling bride of Hades
and abode with him in sadness, Demeter was forlorn. Joy
74 DE METER AT ELEUSIS AND CNIDUS . n
came back to her with spring when Persephone was freed
again to stay with her. Their sorrows and their joys, their
life, their love, their happiness, are always one. If under
Demeter s name be symbolised power to grow and bear
full fruit inherent in each living thing, then Persephone
may be called the outward blossoming into leaf and flower
and fruit. But who shall surely say which of these two
processes or powers is Demeter and which Persephone?
Where does the domain of either begin or end ? Demeter
and Persephone each represent the power to grow and the
process of growth. Of these two elements commingled is
their soul, which is one though it dwells in two bodies.
Both are two aspects of one and the same fact in nature,
and each is the incarnation in her joy of the yearly burst
of springtide life on earth, and of the glad abundance of
the riper year, while in the sorrows suffered alike by each
is shown the yearly march of living things towards death.
Each of these goddesses, linking her happiness to sorrow
and rising out of grief to gladness, bears the testimony of
her being to the indissoluble link that joins life to death
and death to life ; while the unfathomable love that joins
them both, and makes them live one life when they are
sundered just as when they are together, this mirrors for us
that unity which pervades the world and makes all growth
and all life a blossoming from the unknown depths of ever-
fruitful love tokens of the "nevei- dying flowers of joy
eternal," l given for a space and for a space withdrawn.
i Perpetui fiori dell eterna letizia. Dante, Par. xix. 22.
Ill
DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA
THE goddess Persephone, like many tragic heroines of
lore mortal mould, whose mischances moved Athenian
icarts in the theatre of Dionysus, loved light and life. The
queen of the netherworld tarried in her realm of darkness,
longing always for the upper earth and its bright ray.
Nevertheless she was the wife of Hades, and stayed in his
underworld for one third of every year. This bestowal of
the loveliest life divine, even for a brief season, on the
fellowship of the dead or, if you will, this transfiguration
of Homer s death-dealing goddess of the dead into a creature
so lovely and so loving that she charms alike and com
forts the realms of life and death indicates a progress.
The wondrous flower -change suffered by Demeter s
daughter images a widened and deepened view of the life
beyond.
This progress began even in those minds from which
the Homeric poems sprang, but here was only its beginning.
Homer s Elysium was but a shadowy and merely painless
place of abode when compared with the islands of the
blest of the latter-day Greeks. Such satisfactions as Homer
granted in that neutral-tinted place to a favoured few were
76 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
not a well-earned meed of righteousness, nor were the
punishments of Tantalus or Sisyphus conceived of by
Homer as more than shadows of their life on earth ; they
were dim semblances of what those men of unworth suffered
ere they died.
The new Persephone, flower-changed from Persephone
the dread, went down and lighted up the silent home where
hitherto the spirits of men, of just alike and unjust, had led
a shadowy life where joy laughed not but only smiled,
where sorrow brought no pain. Men s ideas underwent a
corresponding change, and we can read between the lines
of the new legend of Eleusis l that a great revolution came
to pass in the belief concerning immortality. Hand in
hand with this there was, partly its cause and partly its
result, an alteration in men s ideals of duty and perfection
in the present life.
The clearest and most musically devout expression of
these new feelings and thoughts is found in Pindar, a poet
of Boeotian Thebes, who flourished in the first half of the
fifth century B.C. It is not surprising that a Theban should
have spoken as one having authority about the life here
after, since the transformation of religious belief in question
was especially associated with Thebes through Dionysus.
The more definite and substantial expectation of future
rewards and punishments, to which the Greeks finally
accustomed their meditations, was connected everywhere
with the worship of Dionysus, a late -born god, whose
Theban mother died at Thebes in Boeotia, that he might
come to being. In Attica this changed point of view
which Dionysus everywhere brought with him was associ-
1 An interesting connection by way of derivation has been suggested
between the words Eleusis and Elysium.
in THE CRAZED GOD OF HOMER 77
ated not alone with him, but with a holy alliance sealed at
Eleusis in secrecy and mystery between Demeter and
Persephone, with Hades hovering near, on the one hand,
and on the other this new godhead of Dionysus freshly
come l to Greece from the north and east.
From Thrace in the north, and from Phrygia, where his
first worshippers called him by many names, but chiefly
Sabazius, Dionysus brought much that was barbarous.
And the barbarous and non-Hellenic quality of the new
god made him a sad puzzle to the Homeric public. In
the only extended and discriminating Homeric account of
Dionysus, 2 his behaviour is represented as the reverse of
courageous, and he is surnamed " mainomenos," "beside
himself," or "crazed." The Greeks before Troy knew as
little of Dionysus as of Demeter, and the ideal heroic
quality was inconsistent with the worship of either divinity.
The most that Homer s heroes did was to admit that
Bacchus was a god, and to own a wholesome fear of scorn
ing him.
Lycurgus, the fierce Thracian, so runs the short and
simple story of Homer, warred against the new divinity.
He pursued the crazed young god, and drove him to fling
himself into the ocean. In the depths of the sea Thetis
showed him kindness, and kept him safe from the dread
hatchet of Lycurgus, whose ferocity was finally punished by
total blindness. In the eyes of a typically vigorous hero,
1 Herodot. ii. 52 ; see also iv. 79.
3 /Had, vi. 135 ; it is not uncommon to regard this, and that other
Homeric place where Dionysus appears, as untergeschoben or suppositi
tious. Until some knowledge is positively gained of the circumstances
under which they made their way into the text, the whole question may
be neglected. Whoever formulated these accounts had behind him or
them a really established conception of the god, and this is what concerns
the present inquiry.
78 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
Ajax, let us say, Dionysus was disgraced by his incompetence
for war if not by his flight, and no punishment miraculously
overtaking the enemy could make him other than a crazed
and cowering being. 1 Therefore it is not wonderful that
this late -born god was not a favourite in the days of
Homeric chivalry, so far as he was then known.
The truth is that Dionysus was, from the outset, a god
of contradictions. He represented death as well as life.
He was a god of fiery manifestations, though born in the
lowland plain of mountain-watered Nysa, and though he
is constantly worshipped as the representative of abundant
vegetation. He was attended by the seasons, by the
nymphs of flowing waters and of growing trees, 2 by the
Muses and by old Silenus the type of all things that flow
upon the earth by the Satyrs, always half beasts and half
men. A prophet divine, Dionysus was sometimes over
come by his own gift of wine. The leader and inspirer of
holy choral song, the god whose worship awakened and
1 Whatever may be said of the Homeric conception of courage and
cowardice, it cannot be successfully denied that a certain grotesqueness
as of cowardice attached to some aspects of Dionysus as popularly con
ceived. The jokes at his expense in the Frogs of Aristophanes are always
harping on this string, and they certainly did not shock but pleased the
people assembled to do him honour.
2 Of course at the time when these personifications of the various
movements and growths in nature sprang into being, there was nowhere
any consciousness of the relation they bore to what we should distinguish
from them as " the real things" or "the things themselves" ; they were
the real things for those in whose imaginations they first sprang into
being, and their confusing multiplicity and elusive nature reproduce the
confusion which lies upon the shifting face of woodlands, streams, and
meadows. After generations had dreamed and talked of these baffling
wildwood creatures, at a time when there was a conscious analysis of
popular stories, and a systematic attempt to revive ancient belief, we find
the poet Callimachus giving the true account of what nymphs were. In
the Hymn to Delos, w. 82 and ff. , he exclaims : " O Muses, tell me truly,
goddesses mine, did oak-trees then come to be when the nymphs were
born ? Nymphs are glad when showers bring increase to the oaks, nymphs
are sad when the oak-trees have lost their leaves."
in DIONYSUS A GOD OF CONTRADICTIONS 79
sustained the loftiest strains of sacred tragedy, was himself
amid the brawls of leering drunkards, and his unreproving
presence sanctioned all the worst excesses bred of unmixed
wine. His Maenads and his Bassarids, when they wandered
off to honour him by penance in the wilderness, were often
seized by frenzy fits, that made his name a signal for most
murderous deeds of harm, and yet he was a saviour god
who suffered death and insult every year to redeem man
kind. Such was the conflict of elements in this new divinity.
With wandering tribes Dionysus came from Thrace ; and
Daulis on Mount Parnassus with Boeotian Thebes received
him in the earliest days.
The gradual adoption of this strange worship through
out Greece may be called a first Macedonian conquest or
supremacy, which had its day in the world of the spirit,
long before that of Philip the crafty and his son Alexander,
the " great Emathian conqueror " of Milton s song. Indeed
Emathia, the cradle of Philip s power, was that district
north of Mount Olympus, where upon the spurs of Mount
Bermius were those fabled rose-gardens of Midas that
early harboured the myth of Dionysus. These prehistoric
associations gave to Philip s intrigues and Alexander s
masterful ambitions a sort of home sanction from the god
of their home, and hence perhaps came the great con
queror s fondness for appearing with the attributes of
Dionysus. 1 Dionysus was the first Thracian conqueror of
the spirit of Hellas, and the later Greeks so conceived him
when they created the type called the Indian Dionysus,
who is the arch-conqueror, a deification, as it were, of the
Eastern exploits of Alexander.
1 Compare the masquerade of Antony as Dionysus at Ephesus.
Hut. Antony, 24.
8o DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
The undeniable touch of his original Thracian ferocity
which Dionysus has, even in his most highly developed and
sweetly civilised aspects, is startling at first, and never easy
either to understand or to combine with his other aspects.
Nevertheless a contemplation of the god throughout his
whole career, and especially as he was worshipped at Athens,
will outweigh whatever disgust might be felt at the lower
phases of his ritual, and leads us to wonder at the high
purposes and great truths which finally associated them
selves with him.
Now it is important to define terms and explain the
meaning here attached to the word Thracians. Those
Thracians from whom Greece learned to worship Dionysus
were, of course, not the Thracians personally known to
Herodotus. Before his day the earlier Thracians had
migrated southward from Thrace, and had established
themselves, first of all in Phocian Daulis, and then in
various parts of Boeotia. The mountains of Attica near
Marathon appear to have been visited by these early in
vaders from Thrace, and a record of this survives in the
legends of the mountain-deme Icaria. Cadmus, the maternal
grandparent of Dionysus in the Theban story, is said to have
sojourned in Thrace on his way from Phoenicia to Greece.
The fabled visit of Dionysus to Icaria and King Icarius is
perhaps best explained by connecting it with the migration
headed by Butes. Thracians are known to have wandered
over the islands of the Aegean under his leadership, and
not far from their track was Marathon, whence they might
easily penetrate into Attic Icaria. With the name of Butes
associates itself the so-called Thracian sea supremacy, a
time in prehistoric days when Thracians are said to have
controlled the Archipelago. The seat of their power was
1 1 1 PROBA TIONS OF A THENIAN DIONYSUS 8 1
Naxos. The early presence of Thracians on Naxos ac
counts for the plentiful growth of stories connecting
Dionysus with that island, called in the end especially his
own, and described as having the shape of his vine-leaf.
Naxos, we hear, was the place where Dionysus was born
and bred. This tale and that of the god s visit to Icarius
have plainly no close affinity to the Theban story. In Crete
also there was during the two hundred years traditionally
allotted to the Thracian sea supremacy abundant chance for
the creation of a vigorous legend of Dionysus. 1
Now the local tales of Dionysus in vogue upon Naxos,
the other Cyclades and Crete, 2 would be sure to play no
inconsiderable part at Athens, which was in especially close
communion with the islands of the Aegean. From the
Archipelago, therefore, as well as from Boeotian Thebes
and the favouring oracle of Apollo at Delphi, can be
traced influences that combined at Athens with the
aboriginal and old Attic tale of Icarius and Icaria. A late
comer in Athens, the Thracian god was the gainer through
long waiting; for an unconscious selection performed by
his Athenian votaries neglected the wildest and basest
features of his story, taking from Icaria, Thebes and Naxos
only the higher traits. Thus Dionysus at Athens became
the godhead and the centre of the widest and best worship
known to the best spirits in the best days of the best com
munity of Hellas.
His ritual underwent a triple probation before Athens
fully adopted him and he so shone before men that he
became the tutelary god and great inspirer of Aeschylus,
Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. There was first
1 For a different view of these Thracians, see the second note on chapter
vi. below. - See an account of them by Hoeck in his Creta.
G
82 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
the Icarian or old Attic probation, then the probation in
Naxos and Crete, and thirdly, the probation in Thebes and
Boeotia. All these were preceded by the god s first estate
in Thrace, and succeeded by his public adoption and
glorification in Athens. We ought, therefore, to consider
five stages of Dionysus: ist, Dionysus in Thrace; 2d,
Dionysus in old Attica, i.e. Icaria; 3d, Dionysus in the
Archipelago at Naxos and Crete ; 4th, Dionysus at Thebes ;
and 5th, Dionysus in Athens. But it will be neither con
venient nor possible to consider these five stages with equal
fulness.
After an account of Dionysus in Thrace, the considera
tion of certain debatable points belonging to Dionysus
everywhere will lead to such treatment of him in Thebes
and in the Archipelago as is required for understanding
him first in old Attica or Icaria, and finally in Athens.
In Athens he reached his final stage of perfection, and a
consideration of his worship there will form the climax and
be our abundant reward for the present rather perplexing
study of the details of earlier phases. And yet the most
painstaking scrutiny, the minutest examination of such
evidence as may be had, will never disentangle completely,
never make perfectly plain, just what elements constituted
the Dionysus first worshipped in early Greece. His charac
ter was composite from the moment Greeks worshipped
him ; for in Boeotia, 1 as in Attica 2 and on Naxos, 3 some
part of him was native to the soil, and he was nowhere
wholly Thracian. There are dimly visible traces of the
merging of an early Greek worship of trees into the more
soul-stirring rites of the Thracian newcomer. The confusing
1 Dionysus, surnamed ZvdevSpos, was a Boeotian god. Hesychius.
2 Pausanias, I. xxxi. 4. 3 Athenaeus, iii. p. 78.
in THRACIAN BIRTH-MARKS OF DIONYSUS 83
thing about him is that in Thrace as well as in Greece he
appears as in part a tree -god, attaching to himself the
attributes of a primitive and barbarous Jack-in-the-Green.
But it is convenient to make abstraction for the moment of
his vegetable antecedents in Thrace. We may safely con
sider that their chief effect upon him in his new Hellenic
dwelling-places was to give him instincts which were the
remote ties of a half -forgotten kinship allying him
with indigenous tree -spirits and tree -worships. The
probably milder and less clearly marked observances which
he found in Greece were soon merged into, and were
obliterated by, his intenser and more brilliant strain. 1 This
belonged to him by Thracian birthright, and here we have
his birth-mark, the one constant element in. early Dionysus
worship, he was and is and always will be a god of
Thracian quality. The great modern historian of Rome
has thus indicated what this Thracian quality was. 2
"Maidens dashing at midnight down the mountainside
with brandished torches, the boom of deafening instruments,
the rush of streaming wine and streaming blood, a religious
holiday-making that lashed all the senses to a furious pitch
of frenzy and hurled men headlong on to madness,
Dionysus, in all the glory and the terror of his name, was
a Thracian god." That portion of the god s character
which came from Thrace in early times may therefore claim
examination first.
In such an examination it must be taken for granted that
the latter-day Thracians (and so far as religion is concerned,
the Macedonians) reproduce the leading qualities of the
1 I have not been able to look at Rapp s Beziehungen des Dionysos-
kultes zu Thracien, but he is reported as taking this view.
- Mommsen in his 5th vol. ch. vi. p. 189.
84 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
earlier tribes, who finally left Thrace (whether of Asia Minor or
of Europe is not certain) and wandered westward and south
ward with their native god to Greece. Making this proviso,
we may say that the Thracians were of stubborn spirit,
uncompromising like the rocky lands which they have
always defended as their home. A wild race of mountain
robbers, skilled in some things beyond the measure of
barbarians, they would not be brought under the yoke.
"The Satrae," says Herodotus, "have never been the
subjects of any," and Thucydides, himself of semi-Thracian
parentage, tells of mountain-dwelling Thracians, men whom
nothing could force into military service. In later days
they were ferocious in rejection of Christianity, and then,
when Christianised at last, they proved most faithful
defenders of the Church. To their reckless defiance of all
invaders these Thracians joined certain views about religion,
death, and life hereafter, which bear directly upon the early
type of Dionysus. There was a great contempt for this
present life, a vivid faith in a better, and to them a more
real and important life hereafter. The saying that the
body is the grave of the soul was originally Thracian, and :
the Thracians used to gather in bitter mourning around j
each new-born child. They wept for sorrows sure to come, j
But if a tribesman died they rejoiced and spoke of his.
happy deliverance. A dying chieftain left many wives, andi
after his death high court was held to know which wife he:
loved most dearly. The chosen widow was rewarded by|
death upon her husband s tomb, and all the others enviedi
her good fortune. 1
Without some personal god to lead the tribes of the
dead, such an intense realisation of life hereafter would
1 Herodot. v. 4, 5.
in ASIATIC THRACIANS 85
hardly have thriven. Indeed the real beginning of it all
was an intensely real person whose dwelling-place and
whose power interested the tribes in Thrace more than
even their native hills, whose favour they prized more highly
than liberty itself. Such a person possessed their pious
souls, and was the god of Thracians everywhere. Hero
dotus was astonished at the intensity of their devotion, and
remarks especially that they believed that there was no other
god save only their own god. This enthusiastic intensity
and almost Mohammedan intolerance imposed the Thracian
worship even upon communities otherwise far in advance
of them. Here then is an Asiatic touch l in the beginnings
of Dionysus ; indeed his Thracian origin was partly Asiatic. 2
Thracians in Thrace, Thracians in Asia Minor where were
settled their Phrygian cousins, 3 all these tribes worshipped
Dionysus under a name of their own choosing, and cele
brated in his honour most strange and violent festivals,
1 For admirable suggestions about the eastern aspects of Dionysus
worship, see the quotation from Sir George Birdwood, K.C.I.E. (who
suggests that the name Dionysus is of Phoenician origin), given in
Appendix III., p. 164.
- Aristophanes, Birds, 874, with scholiast s note, and Wasps, 9.
3 Servius on Aeneid, iii. i$adfin.\ and especially Herodot. i. 28 ; iii. 90;
vii. 75. See also Strabo passim. He is constantly harping on the affinity
between Thracians and Mysians, Bithynians, and the like. But Mommsen
himself could not be more in despair about confusions and uncertainties
regarding the peoples of Thrace and the interior of Asia Minor. See xii. p.
564, where he gives for this state of things the same reason given recently
by Mommsen : diopiaai 8 x a ^ 7rov - ainov 5e TO rot&gt;s e-rrrjXvdas fiap-
ftdpovs Kal crrpartwras &VTO.S fj.ij /3e/3aws Kar^x eiV r V Kpa.rr)del&lt;rav, dXXd
TrXai/TjTas elj/ai rb ir\tov e/c/SaXXoiTas Kal e/c/SaXXo/^i/ous. airavTO. 5e ra
tdvT) TO.VTO. QpqiKid rts et/fd^ot av td r6 TTJV Trcpaiai&gt; vt/j.e&lt;rdai TOVTOVS
Kal 5id TO /XT? 7roXi&gt; e^aXXdrreu/ dXXiJXwj/ e/carfyous. We know as little
(perhaps less) of this region of the Balkan peninsula and of Asia Minor as
Strabo did, simply because the confusing cause has continued to work.
Here has been and is still a confused maelstrom of tribal and national
antagonisms in constant motion, occasional waves of more or less temporary
invasion have always broken in upon any permanent and clearly defined
shaping of political life in the ancient realm of the Thracian tribes.
86 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
both by night and by day. The barbarian violence of these
led, no doubt, to the epithet of the "crazed god " for Diony
sus, who had not been very long or very far away from Thrace
in Homer s day. So close a love bound worshippers to this
god that they sent solemn messages to him, informing him
of their needs, once in every five years. A messenger once
appointed by lot, the faithful first gave their messages, then
three tribesmen stood forth holding with points stretched
firmly heavenwards three upright spears. Others then laid
hold upon the favoured emissary s hands and feet, and
tossed him upward. He was greatly blamed and another
messenger was chosen if he did not light upon the spear-
points and die ; if he died all was well. 1
It is wonderful to see how indestructible was this worship
in Thrace of the leader of Elysian joys, of the marshaller
of the blessed dead, the real king of the real world, call
him Zamolxis, Sabazius, or Gebeleizis, what you will, for he
has later names in Rome and Greece.
The Roman festivals of mid-winter, called Brumalia be
cause they fell upon the shortest day (bruma or breuissima)
of the year, and also those called Rosalia 2 for the mid
summer-night of perfect blooming roses, all these maintained j
themselves with astonishing persistence on Thracian soil.
Their centres lay just where the ancient cradle of Thraco- ;
Macedonian 3 Dionysus -worship was to be found. The I
1 Herodot. iv. 94.
2 Tomaschek, " Brumalia und Rosalia," Reports of Vienna Acad. Phil. !
hist. Class., 1868.
3 The Macedonians had no distinctive religion. As soon as they I
appear in history they are in most respects Greek, but imbued with |
Thracian religious ideas, as were also other tribes of Illyrian origin. l
These ideals from Thrace they never abandoned, and modified only by
degrees as Macedonia allied itself with the glories and greatness of Greece.
Accordingly the distinction between Macedonia and Thrace, Thracian
and Macedonian, may be ignored in treating of the history of Thracian
in BRUMALIA AND ROSALIA 87
districts are two, the first of which lies among the snowy
mountains and the mountain spurs of Olympus. This
district is extensive if it be understood also to include
Emathia, the heart of early Macedonia, and to take in
Mount Bermius and the fabled roses of the gardens of
Midas. This district, contiguous to Greece, may be con
veniently called Pieria. Distinct from this, and farther to
the north, lies, near the river Strymon of Orphic fame, the
second centre of this worship, which bears the name of
Pieris.
Not far from Philippi, which lies in this district of Pieris,
was found an inscription belonging to a Roman epoch, but
in the spirit of its piety towards Bromius can be detected
the ancient and lingering worship of the Thracian Dionysus : l
"Hercules shed tears" the mourner says, " tfien why not I,
for Venus marks thee all her own by beauty less than by thy
loving heart of excellence ? Now whether the mystic maids for
Bromius* service scaled chose thee on flowery meads their
Dionysus. Only we may have reason to think that the constant and close
communion between Greece and Macedonia reinforced all along the line
certain cruel and crude Thracian aspects of the god which, without Mace
donia, might have been more completely softened by native Greek ideas
and observances. As to a fusion between Illyrians and Thracians as far
as matters religious are concerned, this is made more than probable by
the fact that, apart from their share in Thracian rites, the Illyrians can
not be found to have had a traditional religion. Their rudimentary
observances were early absorbed in the wild Thracian cult, just as were
certain local cults of early Greece. See in the Fragments of Olympiodorus
(Dindorf, 27), an account of Valerius in Thrace during the reign
of Constantine. Hearing of treasure -trove, he got orders from the
emperor to take possession. He found the ground was sacred, dug there,
found three silver statues, upon whose removal by him Thrace and Illyria
were overrun by Goths, Huns, and Sarmatians. Connected with these
statues and their holy ground were mystical observances which protected
both districts : iv fj.&lt;ri$ yap avrrjs re QP^KTJS Kol rou IXXiynKou /car^/ceiTO
TO, rrjs reXer^s. One of the statues was to keep Goths out, the second kept
out the Huns, and the third was a bar against the Sarmatians.
1 C. I. L. iii. i, 686.
88 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
mate and Satyr-friend to be, or whether the Naiads require
thee to join their torch-led bands and hold with them high
festival, wheresoever thou art, dear boy, and whatsoever . . ."
and here the marble record ends, yet not before bearing its
testimony to the persistence through Roman days of Diony-
siac customs inherited from those unremembered Thracian
tribes who lent their god to Greece. Dionysus in Thrace,
accordingly, must be looked upon as the head of a world
hereafter, but not of such an Elysian realm as that com
monly thought to have satisfied Greek religious belief. The
hereafter presided over by Thracian Dionysus was the world
of worlds, the real life, far better and brighter than this.
The reality of this Dionysus world and Dionysus worship is
witnessed to by the many and vain struggles made by
Christian bishops to eradicate from Christian merrymaking
certain heathen practices derived from ancient Dionysiac
festivals. We hear repeatedly of these practices in Christian
documents, especially in the decrees of councils. 1 The
1 Ralli and Potli, Hvvray^a, etc., Athens, 1852-59, ii. p. 450. Hav
ing failed to find any trace of this monumental work in the catalogues of
the British Museum, the Bodleian, or the Taylorian Libraries, I applied
to my distinguished and learned friend Mr. Panagiotes D. Kalogeropoulos,
Librarian of the Greek Parliament Library in Athens. In his answer he
gives me the full title of the six volumes ; I quote from the second. The
general title is : "Zvvray/Jia r&v deiuv Kal iep&v Kavbvwv rwv re dyiuv
/cat 7ravev(pr)iJ,uv diro&lt;rrb\uv, /cat r&v iep&v olKOVfj.eviK&i Kal TOTTLK&V
vvvbduv, Kal r&v Kara ^fj.4pos ayluv Trartpw, Kdodv o~vv TrXe/crrats
&\\a.is rr\v 6/c/cX?7(ria&lt;7Tt/cV Kardcrrao-LV 5te7roi5&lt;rats 5taTae&lt;rt, yuera TUV
dpxaiuv e^yrjrCov, Kal dia(f&gt;6pui&gt; dvayvw&lt;T[ji,dr(i)i&gt; virb T. A. PdXX?; /cai
M. riorX??, 67/cpto-et TTJS (rytas /cat fj.eyd\-rjs rov Xpla-rov KK\T)&lt;rias, A6ijt&gt;ai,
1852. The title of the second volume, from which I quote, is : ot 0etot
/cat iepoi Kav6ves r&v ayiuv /cat ira.veuty fjij.wv airoffrbKuv rwv h Nt/cata,
iv ~K.ovffTavTivovTr6\ei, fi&gt; E0^&lt;ry, h Xa\K7]d6vi, ev r(p TpovXXy rov
/3a&lt;riAt/coO TraXart ou, ev Nt/cata rb B. olKov/j.eviKuv &lt;rvi&gt;65wj&gt;, /cat rwv cv
K.ovffTai&gt;TLVOVTr6\ei, rfjs re ev r^&gt; vd^&gt; rdov aytw a.iroar6\(j}v Trpdorrjs /cat
Seur^pas, Kal rfjs v r$ TTJS aylas 2o0tas, yevo^vwv iep&v avvbSuv,
fiera rrjs e&yrnreus Iwdvvov rov Zuvapa, Qeodupov rov BaXa-a/xtDi/oj, /cat
A\e%iov rov Apiaryvov, Kal HtvaKos dvdXvriKov airdvrwv r&v fv rQ devrfyy
Kavovuv fj-erd rfjs &lt;rvfj.&lt;puvtas avruv, A&7Jvai, 1852.
1 1 1 MODERN MA Y-DA Y FES 77 VA LS 89
Rosalia is described as a " wicked and reprehensible holi
day-making " Trawqyvpis aXXo/eoTo? celebrated at Easter
in remote country districts through the persistence of an evil
traditionary custom. This occurs in a note on an order of
the sixth council at Trullo, 1 commanding the suppression
of various heathenish festivals, including also the Brumalia.
Again, in the tenth century, there was a decree against
these festivals ; but they apparently kept their hold upon
the peoples inhabiting the Balkan peninsula even unto
modern times. 2 There is a curious record of what
seems very much like an adaptation to Albanian peasant
life of the Athenian festival of Dionysus, and is probably a
survival of the Thracian festival called Rosalia. 3 During
the first week of May a festival is held, when the people
1 January 15, A.D. 706.
2 The earlier custom fixed the Rosalia at or about Whitsuntide.
3 Arabantinos, xp v yp a( t&gt; ia T??S Hirelpov, Athens, 1857, vol. ii.
p. 191 : T6re (palverai rots (Hapytot.?) Trapexwpirjd r] KCU TO 5i/caw/za rod
KpoTflv TT]V Ka\ov/j^vrjv eoprr^v PoffdXiav T) Povad\ia diapKovcav airo TT)S A
fj-eXP* 1 - T ^ s H Mafov, 6 re 6 Xa6s iKMytav TroXir^v Tivd cbs dpxnyov evdv/u.ei.
did 5ia.(j&gt;6ptt}v KUfJUK&v (ncrjv&v /uerai) 5 TQVTUV e/cp6rei /cat TrXaffTrjv TLVO,
/jLaxirjv, (TXTj/Aartfo/u.eVwj 5vo (TTpaTiuTiKuv au/mdrw^, TOV ^v xP L &lt; J " riaviKO Vi
TOV 5 6dofj.aviKou dpxnyov/J^vov virb ir\a.ffTov TLaffffd 6 crris &lt;rwe\a.[Ji.[3dveTO
aix/^aXwros, /aerd r^v yevofjifrijv ev rr\ reXeurat a TjfJ.tpg. TTJS copras \f/evdo-
/j-dxTlv. See in Folk-Lore for December 1890, p. 518, some interesting
notes on May- Day observances in North-Western Greece, especially the
Ionian Islands. If Mr. J. G. Frazer s informant had known more of the
festal rites of antiquity, he would no doubt have carried the origin of actual
customs far beyond the days of Venetian supremacy. As it is, he has
enabled Mr. Frazer to give a most graphic description of the flower festival
as celebrated in medieval times at Corfu and elsewhere. After all, the
best authorities on such a point are the Greeks themselves. I have my
kind friend Mr. Kalogeropoulos to thank for the following references. He
writes : "As for Roussalia, you will find in the fifth number of AvaroXiKT]
E7ri0ec6picns (January 1873) a dissertation of Politis irepi Pov&lt;ra\iov.
This periodical was published in Athens. Kampouroglous wrote also
about Roussalia on the 24151 page of his History of Athens. Kam
pouroglous has also written something about Roussalia in the E/SSo^ads
(a weekly periodical published ^in Athens). Pandora, another periodical,
contained another dissertation of Politis rather shorter than the article of
the Epitheorisis."
90 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
choose them a leader and give themselves over to pleasure
in various comic performances, and among these they
especially applaud a sham fight between two champions,
one a Christian soldier and the other a Turkish pasha. It
is needless to say that the pasha is worsted and carried off
prisoner in this patriotic Punch-and-Judy show.
But now the main features of Dionysus in Thrace must
be brought into comparison with Dionysus as he was wor
shipped in Greece. From being the god of the only real
world, he comes further to underlie all that is most real, all
that in nature arrests the eye, startles the ear, or awes the
mind. 1 The two views of the god s nature lay confused in
the childlike stories and rites of Thrace and the Thracians.
To gather a complete, an early, and a plain record of the
second and more obviously poetical view of the god, not
Thrace, but Phrygia and Thrace together, the larger Thrace,
must be applied to. Out of Phrygia, as has been intimated,
came in part the ancient Thracians, and in Phrygia dwelt
of old cousins of theirs who had fundamental beliefs prac
tically the same with theirs. From the dim traces which
are still preserved in Thrace and Phrygia may still be read
a conception of Dionysus, which is that of later Greece
reduced to simpler terms.
In this disentangling process it will be convenient to
forget the so-called infernal character of the god, to forget,
that is to say, the otherness of the world where he was
thought to rule, and to remember alone its reality. To the
tribes of Thrace these two qualities were no doubt dimly
identical. Dionysus the god of reality soon becomes an
incarnation of the elements. Wine was, in those early days
1 Also as a god of the underworld he would be conceived of popularly
as sending up trees and plants and as the author of springs.
in THE ANGEL OF THE DARKER DRINK 91
of story-making, quite as much an element as water. 1 Wine
was in fact regarded as a perpetual source of miracles, and
came to be looked upon as a tertium quid in whose essence
the natural and the supernatural met together, sometimes
for good and sometimes for evil. It was at the same time
an elixir of life and a draught by which men lost their senses
and their lives ; it represented and incarnated as it were the
sterner as well as the more charming aspects of Bacchic
power, for Dionysus was not only, as Homer 2 calls him, a
"spring of joy for mortal men," but he was also the "angel
of the darker drink." 3 He came offering his cup and invit
ing the souls of men " forth to their lips to quaff," and thus,
beguiled by wine, they accomplished his will, following after
him through madness and the gates of death. On the
other hand, one of the streams with which Odysseus filled
that trench, out of which the flitting ghosts had to drink
before he could get speech of them, was a stream of sweet
wine. And so it seems that wine had some power to lead
back for an instant to the gates of life the very spirits swept
forth by its spell into darkness and death. Elsewhere in the
Homeric poems we hear again of the power of wine to
awaken and make glad the anguished spirits of the beloved
dead, 4 and a modern voice has uttered for the Persian
Omar 5 the same belief that wine makes glad the dead
And not a drop that from our cups we throw
For earth to drink of, but may steal below
To quench the fire of anguish in some eye
There hidden, far beneath, and long ago.
1 See, for instance, the way in which the Pramnian wine given by
Maron to Odysseus is praised in the ninth Odyssey, vv. 196-213.
2 Iliad, xiv. 325. 3 Fitzgerald s Rubaiyat, quatrain xliii.
4 Iliad, xxiii. 220. 6 Fitzgerald s Rubaiyat, quatrain xxxix.
92 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
The worship of unusual brightness, of motion and flash,
attached itself to the four elements of wine, fire, water, and
gold. Dionysus was, accordingly, not the god of any one
of these only. He was a god of flush and flame, made
manifest in all flashing and flowing. It is not by making
distinctions between the various elements, but rather by
translating each into terms of the others that he is best
understood. Gold was his especial element, hidden in the
bowels of the earth or flowing in the fabled floods of
Phrygian Pactolus. Chrysopator was his traditional epithet
used by a Christian poet of Egyptian birth, Nonnus, who
endeavoured to sum up the legends of Dionysus in forty-
seven books, each consisting of a large array of Greek
hexameters. Father of gold Dionysus really was from the
first in Thracian Pieris. There is a hill near Philippi where
the mountain tribes of Thrace used to get gold. They
called it Dionysus own. Then there is the story of King
Midas, 1 which belongs to Thrace as well as to Asia Minor.
Midas turned all he touched to gold ; and the story is in
reality a blurred record of Dionysus as Father of Gold
where Midas stands for Dionysus. From Dionysus, as a
mark of gratitude for hospitality received, was lent to
Midas, by his own choice, the power of transmuting all he
touched to gold, and when, because of it, he was brought
near to starvation, his prayer for deliverance was to Diony
sus. Dionysus bade him wash in the floods of Pactolus, and
from this bath of Midas that river derived its fabulous rich
ness in gold. In Thrace Midas had miraculous rose-gardens
on the flanks of Mount Bermius. There he sought to take
1 See Herodot. viii. 138, and also i. 14 and 35 ; Pausanias, I. iv. 5 ;
Xen. Anab. i. 2, 13 ; and Hyginus, whose igist fable gathers nearly
all the threads of the story together.
in ELEMENTS OF WINE, FIRE, WATER, GOLD 93
the elusive Silenus. Long his efforts were in vain, but
Silenus at last drank of a spring with which the wily Midas
had mixed wine. Heavy with the unknown fumes, Silenus
was seized, and Midas never loosed his hold until he had
heard prophecies about things to come. This legend, in
which Dionysus is both Midas and Silenus, both captive
and captor, couples itself with the abundant record of
Dionysus as a god of prophecy. But this power of prophecy
came to him chiefly if not solely as the god of wine. In
wine lurks truth, the adage says, and this is why no one
was answered by the Thracian oracle on Mount Zilmissus, 1
before he had taken much pure wine. Wine belonged to
Dionysus as the good gift that freed man s soul from man s
self and made way for the power of the god to speak his
will.
Fire belonged to Dionysus, partly no doubt from causes
which made other divinities of the hereafter who were also
nature gods most easily appeased by torch -bearing wor
shippers, and which gave rise to various fire - festivals.
Furthermore, traces of sun-worship may also be detected
in this aspect of the cult of Dionysus, but beyond this
the violent and all - possessing power of flooding fire
marked it as his own. However this may be, Dionysus
was looked upon as leader of the band of fire -breathing
planets in the sky. The wielder of fire, the fire -faced,
the sower of fire seed, the fire-begotten, the fire-thunderer,
or the spirit that roars in high flames, all these epithets
bestowed on Dionysus mark him as the mover and maker
of fire. Aristotle tells an anecdote that attaches this
aspect of the god also to Thrace. There was, he says, 2 a
1 Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 18, T.
- Trepi Oavfj-aatiov cucoucr/xoTUH/, cxxii. 133.
94 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
well- known place of Thracian assembly where Dionysus
promised good crops for the coming year by a miraculous
manifestation of flame from the top of his holy hill hear by.
Water again, which like wine was one of the streams of
the draught poured out by Odysseus for the dead, is the
element of the Thracian Dionysus, as is shown by his
ancient Thracian name of Dyalos, god of springing water.
In countless stories traceable to Pieria and Pieris, the god
had for his nurses the spirits of flowing waters, his child
hood s companions and woman-helpers were nymphs and
naiads of the mountain sides. These were but one com
pany of all the elusive troops of water-folk that flood the
whole career of Dionysus. To water-nymphs must be
added innumerable Satyrs and Sileni. Nothing is plainer
than the meaning of those curious representations where
Satyrs are pictured in the act of smiting the ground, whence
obedient to their stroke a nymph arises. Here is water
calling forth water, and the bubbling up of a mountain
spring is the gist of these beautiful picture-poems. 1
Silenus, companion of Dionysus revels, sharer of his
adventures in early and in later days, was an incarnation of
fluid, a water-man who might at any time change again to
the fluid from which he sprang. This being true of Silenus
and all Sileni, it is in a measure true of Satyrs also, who are
a more youthful repetition of the type of Silenus. A Silenus
is an Asiatic Satyr, just as the Curetes are the Satyrs, the
Sileni, the Tityi, and the Corybantes of Crete. 2 Without
at all pressing this statement, we may learn from it that
the attendants of Dionysus are as elusive as the god
1 This interpretation was first given to them by Carl Robert.
2 Strabo, X. ch. iii. pp. 463-474. This whole chapter is of the utmost
importance for understanding Dionysus and allied divinities.
in DIONYSUS-SILENUS THE WATER-MAN 95
himself, and as each of the four elements in which his
power was chiefly manifested. You no sooner begin to
see what Dionysus and his creatures are than they are
instantly something new. Each melts into another when
you try to single him out in the whirling dance of Dionysus.
Nonnus tells at length the following tale of Silenus. 1 Hav
ing danced his best in eagerness to win a prize, Silenus
overreached himself. So swift became his motions, so
numberless the undulating curves and swerves of his limbs,
that all at once he was himself no more, but swiftly flowed as
a river onward to the sea. His paunch became the river-bed,
his hair showed upon the stream in guise of bulrushes in
the shallows near the shores, and the pipes he played on
resumed their ancient stand and grew once more as reeds.
Through his attendants the Sileni, the god has been abund
antly identified with water. But the Thracians and the
Phrygians did more than this, they frequently identified the
god himself with the watery element. As the representative
of resistless water s flow, Dionysus was in their conception
bull-shaped. The usual art-type of a river is the bull, often
times a man-headed bull, as may be seen on many ancient
coins. Horace was not unmindful of this when he wrote :
Sic tauriformis volvitur Aufidus
Qui regna Dauni praefluit Apuli. 2
There was a notion that in the bull resided exhaustless
vigour, and thus the bull -form represented flowing and
falling waters as the cause of growth and abundance. The
bull serves in many mythologies along with the cow to re
present any sort of a river and water in general, and even
the later Greek artists remembered this, so that the beautiful
1 Dionysiaca, xix. 261 ff. 2 Odes, iv. 14, 25.
96 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
Dionysus of later days is sometimes represented with the
horns of a bull.
Thus Dionysus in Thrace at last stands forth well-nigh
complete, moving in all that makes real the world that is
water, fire, wine, and flashing gold. Moreover as dwelling in
the land of the real he knew the truth, and would declare it
when rightly approached by the use of his element, whether
of wine or of water. 1 He was the giver of oracles in
Thrace. 2
Other features still remain for a necessarily discursive
consideration. The Thracian Dionysus was a fierce and a
pitiless hunter, a man-slaying power that would rend all
creatures in sunder, an eater of raw flesh. This feature is
undoubtedly Thracian and only survived in Greece. The
Thracian Dionysus appears also to have been the god of
lovely song and the leader of rhythmic dancing ; but per
haps this was really added to him in Greece. The under
standing of both these aspects requires first of all the
observation of those minor and less constantly heeded
persons who form his countless following.
Muses, Hours, Graces, Seasons, mountain nymphs, Oreads
or hill spirits, Dryads or forest maidens, and Hamadryads,
these beautiful emanations from the central divinity of
Dionysus dance around the triumphant god, and mourn him
when he departs from them. But there are figures more
intimately belonging to him, a numerous band of so-called
Bacchae, Bacchants, or Bacchanals. Just so in early Thrace
and Phrygia the wildly roaming woman votaries of Sabazius
were called Sabae. 3 It is the god in them, not they them
selves, that prompts their cries, even when with loud lament
1 Macrobius, Saturn. i. 18, i. 2 Euripides, Hecuba, 1267.
3 See schol. on Aristoph. Birds, 874.
in BASS A KIDS, SATYRS, CORYBANTES, CURETES 97
they mourn Dionysus dead they are still possessed by him.
Through them he cries aloud and seeks with shouts and
wizard motions to break the spell of death and call to life
the spring his quickened self. The great Thracian
originals for these Bacchanals or Bassarids, as they are
also named, were called Mimallones and Clodones. 1 These
were women nerved to more than woman s work, who were
much feared, and who followed the god through the valleys
of Thrace. They all did nothing of themselves, but the god
in them cried aloud, as they darted through the wilderness,
the well-known Bacchant cries " evoe " (eu hoi or eu sot) and
" saboi." Here, in the myriad women possessed of the god,
we have a personification of the passive side of nature, 2 that
into which the god as motion, as moisture, enters to make it
wholly his.
Turning to the male figures that swarm continually about
him, there is such confusion that no discrimination can at
first be made. Satyrs and Sileni, already spoken of, men of
the water and the wood ; Telchines, those workers of metal
from Rhodes ; Corybantes, attendants given to Dionysus by
his Phrygian mother the great nature goddess Cybele;
Curetes from Crete, all these and others have their func
tion. Some of them, as the Satyrs, represent ever and anon
the coarser aspects of wine-drinking ; some, like the Telchines,
have to do with Dionysus as father of gold, and naturally
associate themselves with one who at Eleusis is almost
identified with Plutus, or rather Pluto, 3 the god of nether
1 Plutarch, Alexander, ch. ii.
2 See T. A. Voigt s article "Dionysus" in Roscher s Mythological
Lexicon, where this is made very plain in an admirable presentation with
which Mannhardt himself would not have found any fault.
3 According to Hesiod Plutus was a son of Demeter, and therefore not
her son-in-law. His father was lasion, and he was begotten in Crete
(Theogony, 969 and fif. ) This Plutus was an errant and elusive god,
H
98 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
gold and nether realms. In these figures who can rush into
excesses unworthy of the god himself his majesty is so far
saved. Another group of Dionysus male followers must
now be sought to represent his most darkly cruel aspect.
Those curious and elusive beings, called Pans or Aegipans,
swarm in every Bacchanalian rout, and though they make
less noise perhaps than the Corybantes with their drums,
not the shouting Bacchanal women themselves do such
savage deeds as the Pans when they are roused. Aegipans
and Bacchanals, therefore, are often possessed with the native
savagery of the barbarous man-eating Dionysus.
Pan or Aegipan was originally capable of better things, 1 and
in fact a pure and sweetly simple worship of Pan was cherished
at Athens. He was originally a shepherds god, and could
not withstand successfully the superior claims of greater gods
not confined, like himself, to the hamlets and haunts of
lonely shepherds rocky places on the very summits of
mountains. Hence he surrendered his independence and
is found in many shapes, both large and small, swarm
ing in Dionysus train. All Pans have goat s legs and
horns, but not all are made utterly savage by contact with
the Thracian god. Some Pans are young and graceful,
a wanderer whom the lucky would fall in with and straightway become
rich and glorious. The Hesiodic conception of him bears a striking
resemblance to the poetic notion of Dionysus, to meet whom and feel whose
power was to be forever blessed, only the typical element of Plutus was
only gold and never wine. Hesiod s Plutus is certainly not yet identical
with the brother of Zeus and Demeter, Hades (ibid. 455), who was also
Persephone s husband (ibid. 769). The Aidoneus who robbed Perse
phone from Demeter (ibid. 913) was apparently thought of as dimly
identical with Hades. Pluto was a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys
(ibid. 355), of those who with lord Apollo and the rivers take in hand the
bringing up of men from their boyhood, according to the allotment of
Zeus, dvdpas Kovptov&lt;n crw A7r6XXawi &VO.KTL \ /ecu TJora/iots,
AIOS Trdpa fj-dipav Covert (ibid. 347 and f. )
1 See Preller s Greek Mythology,
in THE SAVAGE PAN OR A EG IP AN 99
spending the time piping on reeds, and in the end this type
of dear little Pan loses his goat s legs and becomes a civil
ised and harmonious young Satyr.
The fiercer type of Pan or Aegipan is distinguished from
the Satyr by courage. For the Satyrs personify among other
things the aspect of Dionysus which made Aristophanes lam
poon him as a weakling and a coward. " Always drunk with
wine, the Satyr kind is insolent through and through. Their
brawling threats are loud, but war drives them in headlong
flight. Of plentiful readiness they in the dance, and skilled
beyond others in draining the widest cups and the deepest to
their very dregs." 1
A savage god had need of courage in his deeds of grim
and reckless cruelty, and this quality was neither in Satyr
nor in Silenus, but only in Pan. All three had horns and
tails and pointed ears, and all seem at times to be nearly
the same, since all represent the frenzy of the god superfi
cially called drunkenness, yet in a crisis your Satyr is a tear
ful drunkard, your Silenus in spite of all his wisdom is a
maudlin drunkard, while your Pan is always fighting drunk.
The Aegipans of Dionysus did not wear horns and hoofs for
naught, since they appear to have bequeathed these append
ages to the devil of many a modern legend. With these
Pans were associated all panic terrors inspired through
them by Dionysus. 2 These savage and sudden inroads of
terror form a counterpart to those equally mysterious and
equally sudden ecstasies and bursts of reckless joy sent most
frequently by Dionysus to his women votaries the passive
Bacchanals. There is just this difference : the Bacchanals
1 Nonnus, Dionysiaca t xiv. 120 ff.
2 Eurip. Rhesus, 36 ; Bacchae, 303 ff. ; Pausanias, II. xxiv. 6 ; see
also Nonnus, Dionysiaca, x. at beginning.
ioo DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
feel the Bacchic bliss, whereas the Pans inspire the panic
fears. And here begins the second stage of this short
inquiry into the savage Dionysus, the rending god, the
power from the world underground that directs the earth
quake and its various attendant catastrophes of fire, of water,
and of endless panic fears. The Bacchanals and Pans !
associate themselves even in Grecian story with frenzied rend- :
ings of men and animals. The frenzy prompting these acts
is so plainly from the god that such rendings may be called ;
acts of worship features of his ritual. From this we may j
argue backwards to a considerable degree of cruelty and
savagery in the worship of the Thracian Dionysus. Human i
sacrifice was assuredly not uncommon in the earliest
worship of Thracian tribes, and it is likely to have been
begun with an effort, like that described by Herodotus, to i
send a messenger to the god in his world beyond. A thirst
for blood of some kind is very universally attributed to the
dead by early legends. This thirst for blood is no doubt
often a thirst for substantial life, as, for instance, was that of
the shades who flocked around Odysseus, but it allies itself
to cruelty, and its wildest fullest realisation is in the Bacchic
Thiasos. This is but a much-needed collective name .cover
ing all followers of the god, all who are so full of him that
they know not what they do the Bacchanals or Maenads
on the one hand, and the Aegipans on the other.
When this mysterious frenzy seized his Thiasos, woe
betide man or beast whom they found on their way ; the
god possessed them utterly, and they wrought his miracles
unarmed. The warlike excesses of horns and hoofs into
which Dionysus hurried his outrageous Pans beggar de
scription. In these tales the god is revealed in his most
awful aspect. He was named Anthroporraistes or man-
in DIONYSUS OMESTES 101
wrecker on the island of Tenedos, while the Chiotes spoke
of Dionysus Omadios, glad of raw flesh. For this last
savage trait another epithet elsewhere used was Omestes,
favourer of raw flesh ; and these names may serve to indicate
the dark background of the Thracian legends concerning
the god. " Dionysus Omophagus, the eater of raw flesh,
must be added," says Mr. Pater, 1 "to the golden image of
Dionysus Meilichius, the honey-sweet, if the old tradition in
its completeness is to be ... our closing impression ; if
we are to catch in its fulness that deep undercurrent of
horror which runs below this masque of spring, and realise
the spectacle of that wild chase in which Dionysus is ulti
mately both the hunter and the spoil." Indeed, what the
same gifted writer says of the Bacchanals of Euripides may
be applied to the legend of Dionysus as a whole : " It is it
self excited, troubled, disturbing, a spotted or dappled thing
like the oddly shaped fawn-skins of its own masquerade, so
aptly expressive of the shifty, twofold, rapidly doubling
creature himself." Truly " the darker stain " of the gloomier
Thracian legend is always "shining through"; no matter
what cheerful aspect of the Hellenised Dionysus you may
choose, he is always a god of tragedies more than in name.
This is exemplified in the old Attic legend of Icaria as well
as elsewhere.
Before taking up that legend, however, a further considera
tion is desirable of what the god whose power it exalts
came to represent for religious-minded Greeks. Already
in proving that Dionysus stood for wine, water, fire, and
! gold, and in telling of his savage aspect, it has been
impossible entirely to exclude points that are surely of
later growth ; so now in speaking of Dionysus as the com-
1 "The Bacchanals of Euripides," Macmillan s Magazine, May 1889.
102 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
peer of Apollo, leader of the Muses, and himself the god
of song, it will not be possible to exclude the earlier germs
and signs of this later transformation, this translation
of Dionysus from the depths of the Thracian wilderness
and the world of the dead to the peaks of Grecian
Parnassus.
All the elements of Dionysus associate with themselves
a notion of swift brightness, of inevitable sparkle. The
ecstasy that words cannot utter finds a near escape, its
native utterance in song. Hence the pious Pindar sings in
a famous prelude that " water is best, but gold is like a
beacon blazing through the night, while songs that celebrate
Olympian glories shine pre-eminent even like the flaming
noonday sun." 1 In another prelude 2 the same poet sings
of three things most useful to man : " Winds that blow and
waters that fall in fertilising showers, showers that are the
children of the clouds;" and then as a climax, song, in
which no doubt he would have us feel the swiftness of fresh
winds and the richness of glad rain : " But if any show
bravery in deeds, honey-sweet song shall spring forth and
fly from tongue to tongue a pledge assured of glorious
achievements to come." 3
The many familiar phrases connecting poetic inspiration
with springing waters and pure flowing streams, or with
wine, as when we hear that Alcaeus, Xnacreon, Sophocles,
and others could write and sing their best only when under
its influence, all these fancies group themselves around
Dionysus as an incarnation of the swift flashing power and
resistless beauty that attaches both to wine and water, but
finds its fullest utterance in the changeful cadences of
1 So begins his first Olympian Ode.
2 Twelfth Olympian Ode, beginning. 3 Ibid.
in DIONYSUS AND THE MUSES 103
perfect song, the graceful undulations and fitful variations
of an ordered and yet wayward Bacchic dance.
The worship of song and dance implied in their associ
ation with Dionysus came as an afterthought, or rather as a
climax, for in this worship his diviner essence was most
made manifest. In these, at last, were fused and expressed
all the elements in which the power of Dionysus moved.
The elemental force in wines and waters, in gold and fire,
had been rudely associated and yoked together in the
Thracian and Phrygian notion of Sabazius. Whence came
the further step which made Dionysus-Sabazius the god of
harmonious songs and rhythmic dances ? This may be left
in doubt, though tradition and the story of Thracian Orpheus
indicate that this transformation was thought of as beginning
far back in Thrace.
Thracians, we are told, established on Mount Helicon
the worship of the Muses, 1 and one of the sayings at a
Boeotian festival, which had other features of Thracian
origin, shows how close a bond united Dionysus and the
Muses. At this wild and Thracian -seeming festival, ap
propriately named the Agrionia, 2 the Boeotian women
searched long and anxiously for the god with many lament
ations ; then, as at a sudden flash of light, they said each
to her neighbour, " He is not here but hath fled away to
hide him with the Muses." The Muses, as known to their
earliest adorers, were emanations, so to speak, from Dionysus
the god of song. The higher and least earth-born of his
qualities required the same separate incarnation and im
personation which was given in Satyrs and Sileni to his
coarser strain. The history of the worship of the Muses,
how they came to be nine instead of three, their original
1 Strabo, X. Hi. 17, p. 471. 2 Plutarch, Sympos. viii. Proem.
104 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA m
number, 1 would lead too far afield. It appears that both
the Muses and the Graces were adjuncts to Dionysus and
Apollo when these divinities appeared as representatives of
idealised song and dance. Dionysus was called Melpomenos
in this capacity, and under the same aspect 2 Apollo was
surnamed Musagetes. As before 3 in speaking of the more
catholic and benign aspects of Apollo, so now, in penetrat
ing into the higher regions and more inspiring features of
Dionysiac worship, in treating of the perfected Dionysus,
you come face to face with the perfect unison, the flawless
concord of the two great gods of poetry, dancing and song.
Not only did Apollo share with Dionysus his mountain of
Parnassus and his Delphian temple, but Dionysus freely
gave room for a temple of Delphian Apollo, " the Pythion
of the Icarians," 4 in his own first Attic home, close to the
flanks of high Pentelicus.
Thither we now must go. Having examined closely the
aboriginal Dionysus in Thrace, and having considered the
prime factors in the Bacchic godhead from various points
of view, we turn to that stage in the history of Bacchic
worship which our own countrymen have done so much to
illuminate the first worship of Dionysus in the highlands
of Attica at Icaria.
In this legend 5 traces of old Thracian savagery survive
1 See Oscar Bie, Die Musen in der Antiken Kunst.
2 The Muse Melpomene may be regarded as an emanation from this
Dionysus, who is the Dionysus of Eleutherae. See Pausanias, I. ii. 5.
3 Introductory Lecture, at the end.
4 See Mr. Carl Buck on this and other discoveries (p. 174, Am. Journal
of Archaeology , June 1889). The worship apparently came up to Icaria from
the Marathonian tetrapolis, where there was a Delion whose rites were con
nected later with the Athenian Delia. See chap. viii. below.
5 See Otto Ribbeck on the whole subject, Anfaenge des Dionysoskults
in Attica, Schriften der Univ. zu Kiel, 1869. Also F. Osann in the sixth
meeting at Cassel, October 1843, of the Verein deutscher Philologen und
Schulmaenner.
in THE ICARIAN LEGEND 105
in spite of transformations wrought by the Attic instinct,
which always seeks to observe measure. The Thracian
legend thus moderated to suit Attic taste, and brought into
parallelism with the Eleusinian Demeter-legend, runs as
follows 1 : " Under King Pandion the fifth since Cecrops
Demeter and Dionysus came to Attica. Dionysus was
entertained by Icarius, in Epacrian Icaria, while Demeter
was the guest of King Celeus." Icaria comprised an upland
valley hemmed in on one side by Mount Pentelicus 2 and
separated from Marathon 3 by a huge mountain wall, which is
cleft by the stream that flows from Rapendosa. Two other
forest cantons, Plothea and Semachidae, formed the triple
confederation of mountaineers to which Icaria belonged.
The three bore a collective name, Epacria. An especial
bond between Semachidae and Icaria like that between
Eleusis and Celeae is suggested by the existence of a
parallel legend to the effect that Semachus at Semachidae
first entertained the god. 4 Icarius, who has been truly
called "the heroic type of the Athenian farmer, devoted to
his trees, his crops, and his only daughter Erigone," was so
irresistibly hospitable that to the latest days the wor
shippers of Dionysus were fond of seeing him sculptured
in the act of entertaining their god, a bearded and portly
presence, who arrives noisily and numerously attended. 5
He is pictured in the act of having his sandals removed.
This office is deftly performed by an obsequious dwarf of a
1 Apollodorus, Bibl. iii. 14, 7.
2 For a view taken from Icaria and looking toward Pentelicus, see
Appendix XI. i. 49.
3 For the view toward Marathon, see ibid. 48.
4 See Stephanus Byzantinus, s.v. ST/^CIX^CU. See Appendix II.
5 A doubt has been raised whether this might not be anybody enter
taining, rather than Icarius in particular. See Professor Gardner, Journal
of Hellenic Studies, v. p. 137.
io6 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
Satyr. So overcome is father Dionysus with the journey
upward from Marathon, where no doubt his Thracians
landed him, and by copious draughts of retzinato l on the
way, that he requires a second Satyr to lean upon. In one
bas-relief a palm shows upon the right, and a fig-tree on the
left, symbolising, both of them, that epithet of Dionysus
which is least certainly Thracian, Dendrites 2 or the spirit of
growing trees. Here perhaps is a something added to the
incoming god, which came to him from a primitive worship
of trees, 3 inherited by the Icarian shepherds from remote
and fetish-worshipping ancestors.
Dionysus proved no ungrateful guest, but rewarded Icarius
1 Plut. Quaest. conviv. v. 3. My attention was called to this passage
by the much lamented Dr. Schliemann. Plutarch (or whoever speaks
under Plutarch s name) discusses the dedication to Poseidon and Dionysus
of the pine tree, accounting for it by their common element of moisture
and productivity : Kal Noaeiduvl ye &lt;pvTa\fj.i^, Atofivay de devdpiry,
wdvres (ws eiros eiTretv) "E\\-rjves dtiovo-iv. Then he accounts for Poseidon s
especial claim on the pine by its use in shipbuilding, adding r$ de
Aiovvcrct) rrjv irirvv dvLepwffav, ws e&lt;f)T]dijvovo~av rbv olvov Kara, yap ra
TTiTvudr] x w P tt \tyovo~iv TjSiV olvov ryv a^ireXov (frepeiv Kal rty dep^brrira
rrjs yijs Geo^pacrros amcmu . . . ou pty d\\d /ecu TTJS Trirvos avTrjs et /cos
a.7ro\aveu&gt; rrjv a^ireXov, exotiffrjs eTriTrjdei6TrjTa TroXXTji/ TT/SOS
o-UTrjpiav olvov Kal 5iafj,ovr]i&gt; ry re yap TT/TTT; Trdvres e%a\et-
(frowi TO, ayyela, xai TTJS pfTivrjs virofjt,iyvvov(ri TTO\\O! ry oiVy,
Kadairep Ei;/3oe?s TUV "E\\rjviK&v, Kal TUV IraXiK&v oi trepl rbv Udoov
oiKovvres. Thus the Greek peasant of to-day need not be too much
abashed when the vials of Occidental scorn are ; poured upon him because
he likes still the resinated wine of antiquity a high-bred taste, hard for
some to acquire.
2 Ibid, and also iv. 6, where a curious attempt is made by the Athenian
Moeragenes to prove that the god of the Jews is none other than Dionysus.
The season and also the manner of their chiefest feast is appropriate to
Dionysus : rty yap Xeyofj^vrjv vrjo-Teiav aK/j,dfoi&gt;TL rpvyrjTCp rpair^as re
TTporldevTCU Travrodair^ oTrcipas, VTTO (T/c^z/ats Kal KaXidalv eKK\-r)fj.dro}v
MaXicrra Kal KLTTOV 8iaireir\eyiJLevais. Little as Moeragenes convinces by
his argument, he yet supplies interesting touches in a picture of country
side and greenwood festivals in honour of Dionysus.
3 With this same primitive worship may also be connected the cere
mony of " Aiorai," or the hanging of effigies on trees which characterised
the Icarian festival, and was accompanied by the song Aletis. See for the
facts Miss Harrison s Mythology and Monuments, p. xl. and ff.
in ICARIUS ENTERTAINS THE GOD 107
by showing him how to plant and tend the vine, and how
to make wine. Till then, shepherd-like, Icarius drank water
chiefly and milk sometimes. Dionysus held forth to him
a goblet crowned with foaming wine, and said, according to
the gist of Nonnus l report : " Lo, thou art blessed, for men
shall sing in future days thy praises thus : Icarius rather
than Celeus himself be praised, and Erigone, his daughter,
beyond the praises of Metanira, Celeus spouse. Tripto-
lemus gave the wheaten ear, but from Icarius we have the
wine-flashing clusters of summertide. Compared to these,
what are the gifts of Demeter ? Corn brings not, as wine, a
sweet release from grief." This comparison is taken from
Nonnus,^ but it meets us in every version of the story, and
doubtless represents the typically Attic way of regarding the
boons of corn and wine, 3 and it foreshadows the ultimate
union at Eleusis and Athens of Demeter and Dionysus.
The story of Icarius may now be continued in borrowed
words : " The vine is carefully tended and reared ; but a
1 See the forty-seventh book of his Dionysiaca, from which details have
been borrowed in the following account.
2 See Dionysiaca, xlvii. 47 and 99.
3 There are no traces of a local Icarian attribution of Demeter s gift to
Dionysus, but Pliny (Nat. Hist. vii. 59) says that Eumolpus introduced
the cultivation of the vine and trees. Here then is the trace of a local
Eleusinian legend attributing the Icarian gift of Dionysus to another
Thracian figure in early legends. But this variation had no hold upon the
imagination of religious men. In fact, as Dr. Merriam has abundantly
shown, the legends of Eleusis and Icaria were so closely connected in
the minds of the mythologists that the one naturally suggested the other.
Not only has Statius linked Icaria with Eleusis, but Apollodorus (iii. 14, 7)
has done the same ; as also Schol. Aristophanes, Knights, 697 (here
Icarius welcomes Dionysus who is a fugitive from outrageous Pentheus) ;
Philostratus,L/z .tf. 39 ; Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. iooc; and Lucian,
De Saltatione, 39, 40, where he speaks of both stories being represented
in full by the dancers of the day. In some writers they were even confused,
as in the Etymologicum Magnum, 62, n, where Erigone is interchanged
with Persephone. In Servius ad Virgilii Georgica, i. 19 Triptolemus is
called the son of Icarius. Nonnus links the two stories, Dionys. xxvii.
283-307."
io8 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
he-goat breaks into the enclosure and injures it with char
acteristic voracity. Icarius in anger slays the goat, offers
him in sacrifice to the god, blows up the skin, oils it, and
gives it to his companions to dance about, thus originating
the sport of askoliasmos, a usual accompaniment of the
Dionysiac festival. The divine gift is not destroyed by the
goat J ; but Icarius is soon enabled to follow the injunctions
of the god, to travel about the country with a waggon loaded
with wine skins, proclaiming the joys of the vine, with
practical applications, and without water. " 2 The Epacrian
shepherds marvelled at the glorious gift. " Whence comes
it ? " they cried, " for it is not from the Naiads, their water-
streams are not sweet." Furthermore, as Nonnus, with
rather frigid elaboration, makes them proceed, "it cannot
be oil from olives, that is not for man to drink. It is not
honey, for that begets a most swift and strong surfeit."
But the shepherds abused the gift and were made drunk
with too much wine. Just here the more awful significance
of Dionysus and his worship shows through the transparent
innocence of these shepherd-simpletons. Ignorant of what
drunkenness was, the legend goes on to say, they thought
themselves undone. In fact it was the savage god who
entered in and possessed them wholly. Dionysus required
1 K-fjv pe &lt;f&gt;dyr]s tiri j&gt;iav, fytws gri Kapiro^op^ffu
&&amp;lt;rffov eTTiffTre tffa.l &lt;roi, rpdye, Ovoftfry.
Evenus of Ascalon, Anthol. ix. 75.
2 I quote from p. 65 of Dr. Merriam s " Report to the Committee
of the School of Classical Studies at Athens," a monument of brilliant and
accurate scholarship which does honour to the American School. To this
Report I refer for an exhaustive account of the Icarian legend in all its
bearings, with full enumeration of all the sources. It is fortunate that the
singularly interesting relics of the country deme Icaria have found such an
able interpreter. This great contribution to our knowledge of old Attica
is contained in the same publication of the American Archaeological In
stitute with the seventh Annual Report of the Managing Committee of the
American School, Cambridge, 1889.
in THE SHEPHERDS SLAY ICARIUS 109
the sacrifice of what was most prized and best beloved, and
so, crazed by him, these shepherds slew Icarius, their bene
factor and their friend, and then they swooned away, wholly
overcome by the power of the god. When sense returned
they woke and saw what they had done. . The repentant
murderers buried Icarius after washing him in a mountain
stream on the edge of the forest, the very stream perhaps
which all visitors of Icaria see to-day flowing through a glen
near by. It is shaded by mighty plane trees so gnarled and
hoar that it would seem as if no antiquity could outstrip
theirs. Not far below these trees the stream plunges down
a steep and reaches the valley of Rapendosa, whence it flows
past Marathon into the bay towards Euboea. Near the
plunge made by this stream is a cave still inhabited during
the heats of noon by shepherds as simple as those in our
old Icarian story. 1
Icarius having been slain and buried, a terrific vision of
him so says Nonnus, and it is by no means sure that he
invented this episode of the ghost 2 clad in a blood-flecked
garment, the " dappled herald telling of a murder to which
none living bare testimony," appears to Erigone. The
daughter wildly seeks his grave. Search is long in vain.
Tired of her own way, at last Erigone follows her faithful dog
Maera, whose instinct leads her to the place. Then, fordone
with horror, she hangs herself beside her father s grave.
At this point Nonnus is truly pathetic in his account of
the lament over Icarius and Erigone. " Wine, gift by my
own Bromius, given to make men cease from care, sweet
wine hath brought but bitterness to Icarius. Gladness it
1 For photographs see Appendix XL i. 46, 47.
2 The dog Maera is made into the messenger in some versions, e.g.
Apollodorus, above cited.
i io DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
gave to all mankind, but death to him. Sweet wine was a
foe to Erigone; for truly Dionysus, who comes to chase
dull care away, hath pursued to her death and slain with
grief our own Erigone."
As if to leave no doubt that Dionysus wielded a power
of possession which drove men to madness and despair, and
was not solely a god of wine and jollity, the last episode of
the Icarian legend gives a woful account of how Erigone s
death was atoned for. A mania laid hold upon all the
maids of Icaria. With one accord, stung by a conscious
ness of guilt for what their fathers and brothers had done,
they flew to the mountain-side and hanged themselves upon
the forest trees. 1 Apollo s oracle, questioned in extremity,
could only urge the punishment of the guilty murderers of
Icarius. These slayers slain, a respite came at last. Ever
afterwards the shepherds of Epacria worshipped Icarius,
Erigone, and Maera (the faithful dog whom she had
tenderly reared), and kept their memory green at a yearly
festival. On these occasions small effigies were suspended
from the branches of forest-trees, 2 to commemorate so at
least the story ran Erigone s manner of death. Meanwhile
the father, his daughter, and the sagacious Maera were
translated to the firmament. 3 Icarius with his waggon
becomes Bootes with his Wain ; Erigone, the Virgin ;
1 A similar mania for hanging is recounted as overtaking the maidens
of Miletus ; see Gellius, xv. io ; and Plutarch, De Anima. For an extra
ordinary array of similar epidemics of suicide, see E. Bachut, Histoire de
la Mddecine et des Doctrines Mddicales, Paris, 1873, vol. i. p. 56 and
ff., where several curious modern parallels to this feature in the legend are
given.
2 For an admirable discussion of this practice, see Miss Harrison on
the "Mythology of Athenian Local Cults," pp. xxxix. and ff. of the
Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens.
3 Hyginus, Fab. 130, end : Erigone signum virginis, quam nos Justi-
tiam appellamus ; Icarius Arcturus in sideribus est dictus, canis autem
Maera Canicula."
in LEGENDS PARALLEL TO ICARIAN STORY in
Maera, the Dog-star; and the Cantharus of Dionysus
appears close at hand as the Crater. 1
As to the legendary epoch to which this visit of Icarius
and this old Attic legend should be assigned, the whole
question hangs together with similarly insoluble ones, with
the date, for instance, of Demeter s arrival at Eleusis.
King Pandion himself of most elusive date under
whose rule Demeter and Dionysus came, is said to have
had dealings with Thracians. These, however, were
Thracians already established south of Thrace at Daulis,
on a spur of the Parnassus, 2 toward the confines of Boeotia.
All this favours at least the supposition that Thracian in
fluence made itself felt in very early times on Attic ground.
Accordingly the Icarian legend of Dionysus is likely to be
as old as other tales told in Boeotia or on the islands of the
Archipelago, such as Naxos and Icaros, both of which
claim the glory of having given birth to the god of wine.
In fact the mountains of old Attica gave to the Thracian
god a home no less his own than the islands conquered by
Thracians. Icaria became to him in Attica what Pieria was in
Thrace ; and the shape which tragedy took in Attica, and
with it the course of the history of poetry even to the present
day, was determined by the way in which Icarian shepherds
understood the worship and the power of Dionysus. No
doubt their manner of taking the whole story was a far simpler
one than that familiar to Sophocles, yet it was sufficiently
complex to make Icaria the cradle of tragedy and comedy. 3
1 To this Dr. Merriam adds (p. 67) : "The bright star c, near the
right wrist of Virgo, was called provindemiator (TrpuroTpvyTjTrip, Aratus,
Phaenomena, 138), as rising shortly before the vintage. Icarius is Bootes,
as vindemiator (Tpvy-rjT-rjp, Schol. Arat. Phaen. 91).
2 See Appendix II. at the end of this chapter, on Dionysus of Eleutherae.
3 Athenaeus ii. 40 A : airb /JLtdrjs ical TJ TTJS Tpayydtas evpe&lt;ris ev
JS Arn/c^s evptdr), Kal KO.T avrbv rbv rrjs rpvyrjs Kaip6v cuf&gt;
ii2 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
This momentous beginning associated itself with the two
mountaineer festivals celebrated by the Icarians with their
thanksgiving and fast -day observances, so to speak. Little
or nothing definite is known of the former of these. It
must have been a May-day festival like the Thracian festival
afterwards called the Rosalia; the other corresponded to
the Brumalia, in so far at least as it was celebrated in the
bitterest cold of the bitter month Lenaeon. 1
Their joy was in Dionysus revealed in streams flowing
free and fast, no longer bound in wintry fetters of ice,
revealed also in the plenteous foliage and brilliant blossoms
of their native woodland home. The masses of yellow
narcissus, found at their ancient home to-day, painting
whole mountain - sides with their bright yellow, gleaming
in the sunshine, and spreading fragrance near and far,
may fitly give ocular demonstration of their old time
gladness.
Their sorrowing was lament for Dionysus, loved and lost.
They mourned when nature s flash and flow and all her
lively colours seemed to vanish from their eyes. Partly to
lament the loss of Dionysus presence, partly to recall his life,
they sought in winter time bleak and storm-swept summits.
There tarried those upon whom came compulsion from the
god. There Maenads and Bacchanals vied in wild dances
and loud cries, which they thought would have power to
bring back growth and life to trees and plants and streams.
Dionysus slept or was among the dead. It was as though
08 5?j Kal rpvyydla TO irpurov eK\rj6-rj 77 KW/jupdia. See the last volume of
Bergk s Griechische Litteraturgeschichte (Aus dent Nachlass, pp. 7
and 8).
1 Dread are the days of the month Lenaeon, the flayer of oxen,
Under the blasts of the north wind, of ice that Boreas sharpens,
Scouring o er Thrace and her pastures of horses to breadths of the
ocean. Hesiod, Works and Days, 504 ff.
in WINTER FESTIVALS ON PARNASSUS 113
they thought each winter would last for ever if they did not
beat the ground and summon spring.
The sincerity with which they made these desperate forays
into winter s fastnesses is best shown by hardships actually
endured. The incident in point which has been preserved
relates, not to the festival at Icaria, but to that on Mount
Parnassus. This matters little, since both were centres of
Dionysus worship, strongly influenced from Thrace in early
days. On Mount Parnassus we hear that a band of frenzied
votaries were blocked upon high levels above Delphi. In the
midst of their incantations to revive the life of spring, 1 snows
imprisoned them. Those who climbed the steep from
Delphi for their rescue suffered from the utmost rigours of
the cold. Their raiment grew stiff, and so the unknown
narrator declares became absolutely brittle and friable.
Though it may safely be said that of the two peasant
festivals celebrated in conjunction with Dionysus worship
at Icaria and elsewhere one was sad and the other glad, no
more definite account can be safely given. With the sad
festival glad features were associated, and the glad festival
was not without its mourning. Thus are the inherent con
tradictions of Dionysus in his very nature mirrored out
wardly by his festivals.
It is reasonably certain that the whole observance which
spread all over Attica and called itself the Rural Dionysia
took its characteristic shape in Icaria. Wonderful to relate,
the Attic salt of moderation and due measure came from
1 See the Plutarchian De primo frigido, xviii. : h d AeX0ots avrbs
6 n r&v els rbv Hapvaabv avaftavruv /SoTj^crcu rcus Qvdaiv,
a.Trei\r)/j.fj.tvais virb Trvev/n-aTos xaAeTroC Kal xt^os, OUTOJS tytvovro Sia rbv
Trdyov ffK\r)pal Kal uXu&gt;5ets ai x\a/xi55es, w? Kal dpafcadai 8iaTeivo/JLei&gt;as
Kal priyvvffdai. In the light of recent events this passage gains new
interest as the earliest circumstantial account of a blizzard.
ii 4 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
the unaided taste of a community wonderfully aloof from
all the rest of Attica. Icaria is deserted now, and lay far
from the course of travellers until the American excavations
unearthed fragments 1 which claim a visit from all interested
in Greek antiquity. And truly the visitor is well repaid,
finding how beautiful is the spot where highest art had its
first outset, and earliest took shape. 2 Near its ruined ;
church 3 begin the forests, the very "wilderness of Marathon,"
through which, the poet Statius says, Erigone once j
wandered seeking wood to place upon Icarius funeral pyre. |
Here, in recent days, but fortunately past, were secret
haunts of brigands now unknown to Greece. The lovely
vale of Rapendosa is not far, for it belonged to Icaria s
demesne.
This is the setting of the earliest legend of Dionysus in
Attica; here were celebrated his Icarian festivals. Their
importance is shown, and also their unusually noble
character, by the fact that Susarion was first invited there,
and that there was performed the first comedy, unless it be
premature to give the name of comedy to Susarion s great j
invention. The requirements of the Icarian holiday-makers
must have been raised amazingly by a gradually purified
and elevated taste to lead them to invite Susarion from
1 See Appendix XI. i. 52-55.
2 This was tacitly recognised when a sculptured scene, representing
Icarius, Erigone, and the dog Maera, was used to adorn the stage of the
Athenian theatre of Dionysus. This scene, together with Hermes carrying ;
the infant Dionysus to Zeus, is still admired at Athens by those who visit!
the ruined theatre. An examination of these sculptures has satisfied many
that they were not originally made for the comparatively inconspicuous!
place into which they are now crowded, for they are really too high suitably;
to adorn what may be called the parapet of the raised stage built byi
Phaedrus where they now are. They originally decorated a stately fafade
upon the stage itself, which was probably built by the munificence of Nero, ;.i
mindful of his duty as Apollo in the flesh.
3 See Appendix XI. i. 50, 51.
in SUSARION AND THESPIS AT 1C ARIA 115
Megara. Report had reached them of his new scheme of
methodised revelry jocosely acted before the festive wor
shippers, and he had perhaps heard of the observances at
Icaria, which were certainly his great opportunity. This
happened, it appears, while the great Icarian Thespis was
still a youth. Perhaps from seeing Susarion s first perform
ance in his native place Thespis received the fruitful
thought which prompted him later when he became the
father of tragedy. And yet the invention was his very own,
springing from the legends which had surrounded his child
hood.
It was an Icarian custom to sing a mournful song named
"Aletis, the Wanderer" in honour of Erigone, and relating
her sad fate. To these songs Thespis had listened no
doubt, and also to the strangely sad and wildly joyous Dithy-
rambus wherein were mirrored the contradictions involved in
the nature of Dionysus. These recounted the poetic vicis-
situdes of the great divinity his sufferings and his triumphs.
Filled with a higher and a new apprehension of the scope
of all these sad stories, Thespis transformed the Aletis and
the Dithyrambus. He had heard, perhaps, of the wonder
ful performances of tragic choruses at Sicyon, 1 which so exer
cised the mind of royal Clisthenes that he interfered with the
subjects represented, for fear of their strong hold upon the
people who heard them. 2 Of Thespis Dr. Merriam 3 has
truly said : " The sad story of the father of his gens (Icarius),
the rites attendant upon the festival, the dithyrambic
choruses in vogue predisposed him to this end (progress in
tragedy), and gave him a nucleus to which he added the
1 As Bernhardy says (Litteralurgeschichte, i. p. 417), the connection
between early tragedy in Attica and these events at Sicyon has been over
stated. Perhaps Bentley was right in saying there was none.
2 Hdt. v. 67, end. 3 Report, pp. 71 and 72.
ii6 DIONYSUS IN THRACE AND OLD ATTICA in
actor, the prologue, and speeches between the choral songs,
and he employed different masks to enable him to take the
parts of several persons consecutively in the same play.
This proved him the Columbus of a new world, a mimic
world, but one calculated to excite the interest, as it is said
to have engaged the hostility, of the great law-giver. It
must have been a few years only after Susarion s advent in
Icaria that, as Plutarch tells us, 1 the novelty of the inven
tion was attracting many, and Solon in his old age, being
fond of amusement and music, also went to see Thespis acting
in his own play. It is a legitimate inference from the
language of Plutarch that the play was produced at some
distance from Athens in other words, in Icaria; for we
can hardly imagine Solon, a true Greek, to have remained
away from a festival of importance, with novel features,
celebrated at his own door. Later than this event fell his
censure of Pisistratus, for the latter s bad acting in the
game which he played in winning his first tyranny."
The Dithyrambus, we may suppose, was so modified by i
Thespis that its calmer course allowed interruption; nay, i
even required it. 2 Out of the most lawless and wayward of
lyric strains Thespis made tragedy, no doubt, by requiring i
both singers and holiday-makers to leave their uncouth
ways of wildness and listen while the glorious sufferings of
Dionysus came before them, recited by a single man (for ]
it is not right, as yet, to call him actor) standing for and;
speaking for the bacchanalian concourse. He spoke, no
doubt, in much the same spirit in which a speaker addresses
1 Solon, 29.
2 Bernhardy (Litteraturgeschichte, i. p. 417) quotes Themistius dis
sentient citation of Aristotle, who plainly thought tragedy was built up on
the Dithyrambus : -rb ^v irpurov 6 xfy&gt;os etVtwi/ T-fSej/ ets TOI)S 0eofc, Qt&lt;riri&lt;
re KO.I pijaiv
in FIRST TRAGEDIES AT ICARIA 117
a Quaker meeting. It was he whom Dionysus chose for
speaking. While he spoke he only was the living god made
flesh. This advance towards full-fledged tragedy was made
as early as the second x quarter of the sixth century B.C.
Upon this one step all others depended, and they were
soon taken ; for the perfection of Attic tragedy came early
in the fifth century B.C. Before long, in fact, Icaria was no
more the centre of the Attic worship of Dionysus, 2 and
Dionysus was brought in triumph to take his place last
come but not the least of all the gods in Athens.
1 The Parian Marble fixes Susarion s advent, with the first comedy
performance, about the beginning of this second quarter. Icaria no sooner
gave Attica its comedy than Icarian Thespis commenced tragedian and
tragedy as well. For the various authorities, see Dr. Merriam s Report.
2 But Icarians played an important part in Athenian history, contri
buting a great comedian, Magnes, who died not long before 424 B.C.,
as well as many pious and generous men of note. See Dr. Merriam s
Report, pp. 80-93, where they are all enumerated and characterised. This
account closes as follows : We still seem to have enough to draw some
conclusions as to the characteristics of the people who dwelt in that
picturesque mountain-hemmed spot, and traced their ancestry back to
Icarius, who entertained the god. We find no generals of renown, no
statesmen active in moulding for good or ill the affairs of Athens, no
orators of power, no one especially active in proposing and pushing laws
in the public assembly for public weal or private gain, no historians, no
philosophers, no artists. They are distinguished by two traits, which
claim our respect and admiration. These are a deep devotion to religion
and a sound and sturdy integrity."
APPENDIX II
DIONYSUS ELEUTHEREUS
A WHOLE cycle of stories touching the first arrival of
Dionysus in Athens ignores Icaria, and centres itself
around Eleutherae, a Boeotian town on the Athenian
frontier, much claimed by Athens. 1 Eleutherae may be
visited with immense profit to-day by those desirous of
gaining the unforgettable impression which a strong Greek
fortification built in the days of superb workmanship can
make. On the high road from Athens to Thebes it lies
not far from the point where the road dips down from the
mountain spurs of Cithaeron into the level Boeotian plain.
Its wonderfully preserved battlements are not seen well
except from the Boeotian side ; but he who turns back
from the right point in the road will understand what is
meant by saying that the Greeks could build nothing that
was not subject to the laws of harmony and proportion.
Go closer, and the symmetry with which square stones are
here grouped together into a massive wall makes you
wonder why so many strong walls in the world have been
made so uninteresting.
But to return to Dionysus. That this Dionysus of
Eleutherae played an important part is sure, since the beauti-
1 Strabo, IX. ii. (p. 412). The Dionysus of Eleutherae was considered
to be a later arrival than the Lenaean god at Athens, and the old Icarian
Dionysus of course was thought of as having preceded him. See the article
Dionysia, in Pauly s Real- Encyclopaedic, by Preller.
DIONYSUS ELEUTHEREUS 119
ful seat of honour still standing in place at the theatre of
Dionysus in Athens is by inscription marked as belonging to
the priest of Dionysus Eleuthereus. Moreover, in the older
of the two temples, close to this Athenian theatre, was an
image of Dionysus, said to have come from his temple at
Eleutherae ; and custom required this image to be borne
once a year to a small outlying temple upon the road which
led to Eleutherae. 1
Furthermore, the coming of Dionysus-worship to Athens
from Eleutherae is associated with the reign of King Amphic-
tyon. Now the common version of the coming of Diony
sus into old Attic Icaria goes back only to King Pandion,
when also Demeter came to Eleusis. Without pretending
to assign such a thing as a date, it is roughly true that
Amphictyon belongs, according to Attic tradition, to an
earlier time than Pandion. Too much importance need
not, however, be attached to this matter of precedence,
since the coming of Dionysus to Semachus and Semachidae
is assigned 2 to the reign of Amphictyon. This story of
Dionysus coming first to Semachidae one of the three
Epacrian denies, of which Icaria and Plotheia were the
other two is probably an attempt to mediate between and
combine the Icarian and the Eleutheraean legends. The
chief differences between Dionysus of Eleutherae and of
Icaria are accounted for if we consider that he came more
immediately from savage Thrace to Icaria than to Eleutherae.
At Eleutherae, Eleuther was the one who taught his right
worship, and fashioned his first image. 3 Now Eleuther was
no less a personage than the son of Apollo by Aithusa, 4 who
was herself a daughter of Poseidon by Alcyone, one of the
seven Pleiades, daughters of Atlas. 5 Eleuther stands for a
1 See Miss Harrison s account at pp. 254 and 571 of Mythology and
Monuments of Ancient Athens.
2 Syncell. p. 157 (125): KO.TCI, AfJuftiKTiJova rbv Aeu/caXWos vlbv rivts
(fxiffL kibvvffov ei s Ti)i&gt; ATTiKrjv e\6bvra ^evwdTJvat ZTj/udxy Kal rrf
6vyarpl avrov vefipida ScopTjcraaflcu. repos 5 fy oCros e/c Se^cA^s. The
next king was Erichthonius. 3 Hyginus, Fab. 225.
4 Pausanias, IX. xx. i. 6 Apollod. III. x. i.
I20 APPENDIX II
softening or Hellenising influence, which Dionysus had sub
mitted to before he reached Athens from this quarter an
influence emanating from Eleuther s father, Delphian Apollo.
Voigt, in Roscher s Ausfuhrliches Lexicon, thus sketches the
legend of Eleutherae : "The daughters of Eleuther saw
Dionysus clad in a black goat-skin. For scoffing at this
vision they were visited with madness. To cure them
Eleuther was commanded by an oracle to worship Dionysus
Melanaigis, of the black goafs fell" Accordingly, Hesychius
describes Dionysus Eleuthereus as a god who gives release
from the madness that comes upon Dionysiac revellers, and
Pegasus, the Eleutheraean priest, stands for a moderate use
of wine not unmixed with water.
IV
DIONYSUS AT ATHENS
IN the last chapter Dionysus was brought from Thrace,
and found an Attic home in Icaria. Now he must be brought
to Athens, and accompanied thence to Eleusis, where his
power has already been recognised while we tarried in
Icaria. The last and fullest presentation of the perfected
god, at the moment when the widest reach of religious
thought and richest depth of religious fervour attached to his
worship in Athens and Greece, has been given us in the
Bacchanals of Euripides. It only remains, therefore, to
connect what we know of Dionysus in Thrace and Dionysus
in Icaria with this worship of Dionysus at Athens. The
culminating truth about the god will be revealed to us
after attentive consideration of the most perfect play of
Euripides, and then we shall in the next chapter close our
consideration of the Eleusinian divinities with a concluding
if not a final word about the Eleusinian ritual, and some
account of the monuments of Eleusis.
The cult of Dionysus was not adopted at Athens as a
matter of course. Patrician traditions firmly rooted at
the capital long resisted popular pressure in favour of the
peasant divinity from Icaria. There was evidently far less
122 DIONYSUS AT ATHENS iv
disposition in early Athens to meddle with Icarian merry
making than there was to take part in Eleusinian mysteries,
with which at a very early date Athenian family traditions
connect themselves. 1 Still the political fusion of Attica,
which was associated with the glorious name of Theseus,
could not in the long run be maintained without such
broadening of religious observance in Athens, and in
Attica at large, as should more completely make one the
heart of Attic and Athenian religion. The exclusiveness of
local or township ritual had to disappear, and some sort
of religious fusion had to be brought about.
Fortunately this needed fusion tended to accomplish
itself in spite of official discouragement. The spontaneous
impulses of a people, religious without being superstitious,
accomplished many large-hearted alterations, and among
them the triumph at Athens of Eleusinian Demeter and
1 Pausanias, I. xxxviii. 3, gives the terms of peace concluded between
Athens and Eleusis after the war in which were killed King Erechtheus
of Athens and Immarados of Eleusis, a son of the Thraco-Eleusinian
Eumolpus. The Eleusinians were to submit to Athenian supremacy,
saving only that they were to regulate the mysteries in their own way.
Eumolpus and the daughters of Celeus were in immediate charge of
T& lepa TOLV deoiv, the sacred observances in honour of the two goddesses.
But Pausanias names as successor to Eumolpus, Ceryx, a son, not of
Eumolpus, but of Hermes and the daughter of Athenian Cecrops, Aglaurus.
The same belief in an early intervention of purely Athenian families at the
rites of Eleusis is shown by Strabo s explanation, XIV. (p. 633), of certain
existing privileges attaching to the so-called /3a&lt;riAets at Ephesus. They
represented a remote Athenian ancestor, Androclus, the son of Codrus,
who founded Ephesus and assumed control of the Eleusinian rites trans
planted thither at that early date. The most convincing authority for an
early fusion in some sort of Athenian and Eleusinian observances is perhaps
Herodotus in his account of Solon s answer to King Croesus, who wished
him to tell of the happiest man he knew (i. 30). Tellus the Athenian was
his man, for after a life otherwise completely happy Tellus died most
gloriously fighting for his country against near neighbours (the Megarians).
He fell at Eleusis, and was buried where he fell with all possible honours.
Such burial of an Athenian on Eleusinian soil suggests more or less com
plete fusion of Athenian and Eleusinian rites and customs.
iv EPIMENIDES OF CRETE 123
Icarian Dionysus. Here was indeed one of the earliest of
many brilliant victories gained by Athenian democracy.
Solon s actually visiting, or even a commonly credited report
that he visited, the rustic play at Icaria or elsewhere in
Attica, marks a turning-point in the history of Athenian
state religion.
It is abundantly evident that in the earlier ages of their
worship Demeter and Dionysus were alike divinities of the
common people. Consequently we are not surprised to find
either that the earliest recorded enlargement of the official
religion at Athens was a recognition of Eleusinian Demeter,
or that there is a still more complete record of the later
official adoption of Dionysus forced by popular discontent.
The people failed to win power under Cylon s leadership,
but they succeeded in altering the state religion. Epimen-
ides, a wise man of Crete, was called in, after Cylon s
attempt had been suppressed, to devise means for allaying
popular disaffection. 1 The gratitude felt for Epimenides
1 The date of this purification of Athens by Epimenides was about
596 B.C. That a humanising change did come over Attic religion and its
officially constituted observances is beyond the possibility of a doubt.
What in general terms this change was, and that it was definitely associ
ated with Epimenides, appears from Strabo, who says (p. 479): K 5 TTJS
QaiffTov rov TOI)S Ka.6apfj.oijs TroirjcravTa. 5ta TUV eir&v "Etiri^vL^v (paalv
elvai, and Plutarch s Life of Solon (12, 4 and ff.), where we read of
Epimenides substantially what follows : He was reputed a friend of
the gods, with especial skill and knowledge touching mysteries and
enthusiastic rites (TTJV tvdovcriacrTiKTiv /ecu TeXecmxV &lt;ro&lt;t&gt;lav). He
did much to prepare the way for Solon s legislation by reducing to
simplicity (ev&TaXeis eiroirjo f) the official sacrifices, and by softening down
in them the observances of mourning. He introduced certain sacrifices
into funeral rites, and thus banished harsh and barbaric usages to which
most women had previously clung. But above all, by certain propitiatory
and purifying rites, and by instituting new observances and sanctuaries, he
made the city ready for sacred orgies and hallowed it for the service of
justice, bringing it to a readier obedience of the promptings of concord.
See Bernhardy, Griechische Litteraturgeschichte, i. p. 409. Since the
above was written the newly-discovered Aristotelian Constitution of Athens
has gone far to justify the importance here attached to the intervention
124 DIONYSUS AT ATHENS iv
at Athens was commemorated by a statue, 1 and we may
conclude that his reforms were made in the interest, not of
concord only, but of the maintenance of the state religion
on a broader and therefore a more universally acceptable
basis.
In the month which was afterwards selected for the
flower-festival of Dionysus, when that also was officially
of Epimenides, by briefly mentioning it as follows : ETrt/zei/^s 5 6
eirl Totfrois tKadype TTJV Tr6\iv. This comes at the very beginning of the
newly-discovered MS. , and is preceded by an account of Myron s arraign
ment of the Alcmaeonidae and of their perpetual banishment carried out
even upon the buried remains of their dead. This was all done in
expiation of their outrageous suppression of Cylon and his faction. When
the grateful Athenians, marvelling at his work, pressed riches and honours
upon him, Epimenides took for his guerdon a branch of the sacred olive,
and went his way.
1 Pausanias says (I. xiv. 3 and 4) : " I intended ... to give such
account as is possible of the sanctuary at Athens called the Eleusinion,
but was prevented by a vision in a dream. I will turn to what may law
fully be told to every one. In front of this temple, where is the image of
Triptolemus " ["We are undoubtedly justified," says Miss Harrison in
her admirable commentary (p. 93 of Mythology and Monuments of Ancient
Athens], "in supposing that the two temples" (one of Demeter and
Kore, the other of Triptolemus) went by the name of Eleusinion "], " is
a bronze bull, apparently being led to sacrifice, and a seated figure of
Epimenides of Cnossus." [Strabo (as well as Plutarch) tells us more
accurately, X. iv. 14 (p. 479), that Epimenides came from Phaestus
in the Cnossian district. ] Epimenides is said to have gone into
a field and to have fallen asleep there in a cave, and the sleep did
not depart from him for forty years ; and after his awakening he
wrote poems and purified various cities, among them Athens." I have
been quoting from Mrs. Verrall s excellent translation, p. 86 of Mythology
and Monuments of Ancient Athens. The statue of Epimenides would
naturally be placed in the Eleusinion, if Osann is right, as I have thought
him, in attributing to him the official recognition of the Lesser Mysteries
and their whole definite organisation. Whether the actual place of its
erection should be in front of one temple or the other was a matter of chance
or momentary convenience. I venture, therefore, to believe in the literal
accuracy of Pausanias, both as regards the place of this statue and the
person whom it represented. Indeed the witness of Pausanias confirms
Osann s views adopted below. The name of Epimenides was indissolubly
associated in the minds of religious Athenians with their Eleusinion and
its Lesser Mysteries. Not to have raised his statue in just that precinct
would have been like denying to Browning his place in Westminster
Abbey.
iv THE PISISTRATIDAE AND DIONYSUS 125
recognised at Athens, Epimenides caused a new festival to
be celebrated. This was a specifically Athenian observance
in honour of Demeter and Persephone, but especially of
Persephone, called the Lesser Mysteries, as distinguished
from the older - established Greater or Eleusinian Mys
teries to which it served as a prelude. 1 In the Lesser
Mysteries Dionysus became associated with Demeter, the
mystery of his birth under the name of lacchos being duly
commemorated. This was all the more natural because
Dionysus had already found his way to Eleusis. 2 Not until
nearly a century later is there record of a second step
taken in the occupation of Athens by Attic Dionysus. This
time the changes were conclusive and effectual ; they were
the result not of the people s disaster under a Cylon, but of
the triumphs of the enlightened friend of the people, a
native of the Attic highlands. The famous tyrant Pisi-
stratus and his family appear to have been the providential
defenders of the faith in Dionysus. 3 Before passing to the
1 Diogenes Laertius, lib. I. cap. x. sec. 6 : Idpfoaro (sc. E7riyuei&gt;/577s)
5e /cat Trap Adrjvalois T& iepbv TWJ/ &lt;refj.vui&gt; 6euv, ws $770-1 Kbfiwv 6
A/ryetos kv rip Trepl irot. rjTwv.
2 See the first note on chapter v. below.
3 The evidence connecting Pisistratus with the revised and enlarged
Bacchic worship at Athens is sufficient, due regard being had to the sort
of evidence which is at all possible in a matter of the sort. What the
evidence is Ribbeck has not stated adequately. I will here try to give a
suggestion of it :
(a) The only positive evidence connecting Pisistratus with Dionysus is
a somewhat inconsequent utterance of Athenaeus (p. 533 C): 6 5 Heiffto -
rparos /cat ev TroXXots /3api)s tytvero, STTOU Kal TO ^ h.Q"t]vr\ai rov Aiovvcrov
TrpbauTTov fKeivov TII^S &lt;j&gt;a&lt;riv eiK6va. Some one will be sure to see in this
a mere bit of invention springing from the well-known latter-day habit of
making statues of living potentates with the attributes of various divinities.
But this objection, if well taken, leaves still more assured the certainty of
an especially close relation between Pisistratus and Dionysus. The story
could not otherwise have got itself invented.
(t&gt;) Pisistratus is indirectly but very really connected through Ono-
macritus with the whole reshaping by the Orphic school of the religion and
the mysteries of Dionysus and Demeter.
126 DIONYSUS AT ATHENS iv
new festivals that were then instituted, the new features
now discernible in the myth of Dionysus must be
given. These are said to have been shaped and codified,
(c) Plutarch, Theopompus, and Athenaeus never tire in relating anec
dotes to show how Pisistratus befriended the tillers of the fields. The
newly-recovered Constitution of Athens (see. chapter 16) re-enforces this point.
Pisistratus did everything in his power to make the country people in
dustrious and keep them in the fields rather than allow them to congregate
anywhere and agitate. He instituted TOI)J Karen, STOOL S St/cacrrds, made
frequent country visits of inspection, and settled disputes. Then comes
the brief story well told, as Aristotle s pointed stories always are of the
labourer in the Hymettus district accosted at Pisistratus command while
digging with a (?) "spike." Asked what crops he grew, the countryman
promptly answered, Curses in plenty and abundant distress, and Pisistratus
is sure of his tithes." In spite of the burning question of tithes, Aristotle
goes on to say of Pisistratus : ovdev S TO Tr\rj6os ovd ev rots d XXois Trctpc&xXei
Kara TTJV ap^v, dXX cu ei Trapeo~Kevaei&gt; elprjvrjv /cat erripec 5t i](rw)(iav
5to Kctl 7roXXd/as [7ra/3y / u.tdf]eTo u&gt;s [77] Uto LO TpdTov rvpavvls 6 e?rt Kp6voi
/Si os e ifj. In spite of oppressive taxation the countryman of Attica be
lieved in Pisistratus, who conciliated all his prejudices. Among these
was a childlike belief in the bodily intervention of the gods skilfully flattered
and practised upon by the return of Pisistratus with Athene Sotera to guide
him, some say she was a Thracian girl named Phye (cf. Athen. p. 609).
Since there was a reshaping of the worship of Dionysus in his day and by
his friend Onomacritus, can we suppose Pisistratus to have stood aloof
from such an incomparable means of currying favour with his agricultural
constituents, and satisfying his own religious impulses ?
(d) That there was this new departure under Pisistratus is abundantly
shown by the facts and dates in the career of Thespis. Furthermore,
Plutarch s anecdote (Solon, 29) of Solon railing at Thespis for his play
actor s trick of manifold lying goes with his account of how the same law
giver jeered at Pisistratus bad acting in the role of Odysseus (Solon,
chap. 30), and manifestly associates Pisistratus with the new-fashioned
play-acting.
(e) One striking fact is added to the above from Aristotle s Athenian
Constitution, 15. Pisistratus spent his second exile in the district where
Dionysus was earliest worshipped : irepl rbv Qep/j.a?ov K6\Trov . . . exeWev
be irapijXOev ets TOI)S irepl TLdyyatov TOTTOVS 86ev %pr)fj.a,Ti(rdiJ,vos KCU
o-rpartwras /Ma-Ouadfj.ei os . . . ai&gt;a.(r6&lt;ra.&lt;r6ai /3ia TTJV dp^V e7rexefy&gt;ei.
See Mr. Kenyan s note.
(/) Aristotle mentions the tyranny of Pisistratus and the Pisistratidae
as among the longest of duration known to him (Politics, v. 12). General
ising from his facts in the previous chapter (n) with an especial eye to
the career of the Pisistratidae (e.g., ZTI d ^ pbvov avrbv 0cuW0cu
/j.r}5tva T&V dpxofj^vwi vfipifrisTa, /mrjTe viov ^-fjre vav, dXXd /mrjd^ &\\ov
(M-ridtva ruv Trepl avr6v), he says that a tyrant "should appear to be
particularly earnest in the service of the gods ; for if men think that a
iv ONOMACRITUS AND ORPHIC MYTH-MAKING 127
as it were, by Onomacritus. 1 However this may be, the
connected story that got itself together at this time in
Athens and Attica explains the aspect of Dionysus upon
which the name lacchos was bestowed. lacchos is the
Dionysus whose mystic birth came into the Lesser Mys
teries long since instituted by Epimenides, whose Cretan
birth had much to do with shaping the popular conception
of this new aspect of the god.
This story had been in the air, and was only recorded,
it were, by Pisistratus and Onomacritus, who were
encouraged by the Delphian oracle to do this. It is
evidently made up of a motley and legendary material,
ultimately Thracian perhaps, but immediately contributed
from the islands of the Archipelago, and most especially
from Crete.
ruler is religious and has a reverence for the gods, they are less afraid of
suffering injustice at his hands, and they are less disposed to conspire
against him, because they believe him to have the very gods fighting on
his side. At the same time his religion must not be thought foolish "
(Dr. Jowett s translation, pp. 181 and ff. )
1 Onomacritus (see Herodotus, vii. 6) was on confidential terms with
Hipparchus, but had to leave Athens because he introduced into the oracles
of Musaeus one of his own, wherein the imminent destruction of an island
near Lemnos was predicted. Lasus of Hermione, Pindar s teacher, detected
his fraud. When the Pisistratids were in exile he appears to have been
reconciled with them, and to have joined them in their visit to the court of
Xerxes, whom he incited to war against Athens by various prophecies.
Herodotus calls him x.p-rja [j.oKb yov re K.o.1 dLad^rrjv yjp-qviL&v TUV Mof&lt;raou.
He was one of the codifiers of the Homeric text, into which he introduced
various interpolations. What is thus known of his treatment of Musaeus
and Homer makes it regrettable that we do not know the Orphic materials
out of which he wrought what was possibly an officially sanctioned account
of the Zagreus-Dionysus myth. But so far are we from knowing his sources
that our means of knowing what was made of them are very scanty. It is
only from comparatively late authorities that we hear of his dealings with
Orphic materials. The Orphic brotherhood first showed itself in his day
and at Athens. See for a sufficient account the articles "Onomacritus"
and "Orpheus" in Pauly s Real- Encyclopaedic, both by Dr. G. F. Bahr.
See for a yet fuller account Bernhardy, Litteraturgeschichte (i. 419-421,
and ii. 425-440), and Lobeck s Aglaophamus.
1 28 DIONYSUS AT A THENS I v
Onomacritus, let us say, striving to weave conflicting
accounts of Dionysus into one, hit upon the idea (or else
finding it ready to his hand made skilful use of it) of a
succession of births each one of which was a reincarnation
of the one god.
Zagreus, or Dionysus, under his more savage and uncom-
forting aspect, Zagreus the wild Huntsman, an incarnation
of the pitiless harms and blasts of winter-time, was the son
of Zeus and Persephone. This Persephone was not the
flower-faced maiden fair and sweet, but the threatening
queen of death. Her son, this Dionysus - Zagreus, was
mightily favoured by his father Zeus. So true was this that
Zeus was about to give the child his throne, and to sur
render with it his thunders and lightnings. But this plan,
like so many others of Zeus, was defeated by Hera s
jealousy. Hera set the Titans upon him, and they were
his undoing, although he shifted into many shapes to get
free. The Titans, fourteen in number, took Zagreus while
he was under the shape of a bull. They tore him into
fourteen pieces, which Apollo buried at Delphi. Only his
heart was not buried there, for Athena took it and gave it
to Zeus, who swallowed it and then brought forth to new
birth the babe Dionysus, specifically named lacchos. A
favourite subject for sculptured bas-reliefs was this mystically-
born babe lacchos, wildly swung by a Maenad and a Satyr
in the mystical sieve to which he owed his Orphic epithet
of Liknites lacchos or Dionysus of the mystic sieve.
And now the necessity of understanding the definite
official form into which this newly-recognised worship fitted
itself brings up the more or less chaotic mass of Athenian
festivals in honour of Dionysus. The following attempt to
deal with it shall be at least characterised by a certain neglect
iv EPIMENIDES, PISISTRATUS, ONOMACRITUS 129
of complicated and subordinate questions. 1 It goes without
saying that Pisistratus and his advisers did not invent anything
new when they instituted the Athenian festivals in honour of
Dionysus. This was equally true, no doubt, of Epimenides
and the Lesser Mysteries. They merely reorganised exist
ing popular usage, and by official recognition gave it per
manence, and secured its orderly observance. Pisistratus
would naturally feel that he would tighten his hold upon his
enthusiastic highlanders, 2 and that his power could thereby
be more secure, if only he gave legal sanction to their
favourite worship of Dionysus. He accordingly organised
in the god s honour the most brilliant national ceremonies,
and by instituting, as it were, a yearly triumph of Dionysus
at Athens, he made his partisans sure of his and their
supremacy.
The accomplishment of all this led him to make a series
of religious innovations, which completed the work begun a
century before by Epimenides, and by this great addition to
previously recognised religious observances the religion of
the Attic people in the broadest sense was finally estab
lished as the Attic state religion. Pisistratus, to put the
gist of the matter shortly, introduced into the official
calendar the two peasant festivals long observed in
Dionysus honour by the people in Icaria and elsewhere. 3
1 In attacking this much debated theme, I shall not attempt to arm
myself in all cases with my sources. I have followed Ribbeck in many,
though not in all, material respects.
2 Aristotle s Constitution of Athens, 13 : ^trav 8 at ordaets T/sets
. . . TplrTj 5 77 T&V diaKpiwv e0 r/ TeTay/j.tvos fy IIct0i0T/Mroff, STJ^UOTIKW-
raros elvai doK&v. Cf. Herod, i. 59, and Aristotle s Politics, v. 9.
3 The whole problem of these festivals is complicated by a third set of
autumn festivals celebrated specifically for the vintage. These assumed an
enormous importance at all centres of Dionysus worship, and probably
shifted the dates of the chief celebrations in his honour. It is even
rash to say that these were not as old as any observances which I call
K.
1 30 DIONYS US AT A THENS i v
In doing this, however, he was careful to make such splen
did additions and gorgeous modifications as gave the
incoming god a great pre-eminence, and caused his newness
to be forgotten. And now a brief account of these two
festivals, the Anthesteria or flower-festival and the Lenaean
festival, is requisite.
As Pisistratus found the flower -festival of Dionysus, it
was apparently an occasion for greeting gladly the return of
spring. There were children garlanded, and garlanded
worshippers young and old. There was tasting of wine
newly opened, and there was competitive potation, ending
no doubt in some sort of wordy row like that which assails
the ear to-day near frequented pot-houses of the cheaper
sort in Greece. This flower -festival, as Pisistratus left it,
was all that it had been, with the addition of a triumphal
entry of Dionysus into Athens. Furthermore there was
instituted a symbolical marriage of Dionysus, the idea of
which was cleverly borrowed from the yearly marriage rite
of Dionysus and Ariadne, celebrated on the island of Naxos
in the Archipelago. 1 Cleverly borrowed, I say, because the
Attic rite of marriage was only dimly connected with nature
worship. Ariadne represents the spring, and her annual
wedlock with Dionysus symbolises the yearly renewal of
Dionysus-festivals. It has, however, seemed suitable to leave them out
here. For a full but rather confusing account of all festivals of the
one kind and the other, see Preller s article "Dionysia" in Pauly s Real-
Encyclopddie. The confusion is certainly not in Preller s admirable pre
sentation, but rather in conflicting and insufficient information which alone
is available.
1 The merit of first seeing this connection belongs to Dr. Thiersch,
who speaks of it in his introduction to Pindar, p. 156. Speaking of the
archons Aristotle says, Constitution of Athens, 3 : $Kr)crav 5 ou% a/na
irdvres 01 evvta dpxofres, dXX 6 /*&&amp;gt; /3a&lt;riXei)s e[l]xe TO vvv Ka\ovfj.vov
JZovK&Xiov, TrXtja lov TOV Upvravetov (a"r)/j.eiov d TI Kal vvv yap rrjs
TOV /3a&lt;nX^ws yvvaiKos 17 (ri;/i/xiis evravda ylverai T$ Atovvay /cat 6
iv REFORMED ATHENIAN FESTIVALS 131
nature s vivid powers of growth. But the wife of the King-
archon at Athens did not necessarily suggest the spring.
Dionysus yearly marriage with her, celebrated in the Bu-
colion, was certainly witnessed at Athens with feelings much
the same as those entertained by Venetians who witnessed
the annual espousals of their doge with the sea. In the one
case the bridegroom and in the other the bride represented
the body politic, and the espousals in both cases proclaimed
most loudly the existence of a tie between each member of
the body politic and a power which all regarded as assuring
safety to the state. Only for Venice the power was of this
world and material, while for Athens it was the glorious
divinity, the mysterious grandeur and intensity, 1 that trans
figured the Attic Dionysus.
Such were the important and significant ceremonies
added in Pisistratus day to the flower -feast of Bromius,
and they made of it a festival which later on Thucydides 2
calls "the older Dionysia," and which coincided with the
summer feast of joy observed in the country, particularly at
Icaria. Another phrase applied to it, also in Thucydides
day, is the " Lesser, or the Rural Dionysia." For this Mr.
Browning has a shorthand phrase taken directly from the
Greek : he has called this holiday the " Little-in-the-fields."
These various names of Older and Lesser served evidently
to distinguish the feast of Pisistratus from the Greater
1 It should be mentioned (simply by way of showing what a puzzling
mixture of life and death, gladness and grief, all Dionysus worship was)
that the last day of Pisistratus reformed flower-festival was a commemor
ation of funereal kind. Fourteen women took a solemn oath of purity and
obedience to tradition. Then they made due sacrifice at fourteen altars,
one for each of the fragments into which the fourteen Titans rent Dionysus-
Zagreus. Possibly these were of the nature of those humanised funereal
rites whose institution Plutarch attributes to Epimenides of Crete.
132 DIONYSUS AT ATHENS iv
Dionysia which came into existence long after his day and
generation.
And now for the second festival of Dionysus as instituted
by Pisistratus. Remarking, no doubt, the great and growing
importance of the Icarian mid-winter celebration, he legal
ised the popular winter holiday of Dionysus at Athens, and
made various innovations in the direction of the new Icarian
fashion of representing plays. And here we come to an
important and more or less certain date. In 535 B.C., eight
years before Pisistratus died, Thespis of Icaria brought
out his first play, at the winter or Lenaean 1 festival in
Athens. 2 Thus the Icarian Satyr-play and tragedy were
brought to Athens just at the time when Dionysus came
into power, so to speak. In fact their introduction was his
triumph.
This renovation and new consecration of their imme
morial merry-makings, and of the time-honoured rites
resorted to for ensuring a fruitful year on the Attic country
side, gave immense satisfaction to the people at large. It
lifted a load of apprehension and discontent from their
hearts, and the echo of their longing, made less mournful by
1 Ribbeck maintains with good arguments that the Icarians held to
the old name for Gamelion, which was Lenaeon (see Plutarch s fragments
on Hesiod, No. 29). That Athens once used this name for the month of
the winter - festival of Dionysus - Lenaeus (for this name see Hesychius)
and of the biennial processions of the Lenae (Strabo, x. 468) or Lenides
(Eustath. on Iliad, vi. 132) to the mountains, especially to Parnassus
(Pausan. X. iv. 3), is proved by its survival in Asia Minor, whither Athenians
early transplanted it (see the inscriptions cited by Pape in his Diet, of
Proper Names}. The Boeotians possibly had the same name for the same
season (Hes. Works and Days, 504), though Plutarch (fragments on Hesiod,
No. 29) denies it.
2 The precise date depends upon the Parian Marble, but not the fact,
which is very widely vouched for. It is noteworthy that the trustworthiness
of dates given on the Parian Marble has received confirmation, here and
there, by the newly-recovered Athenian Constitution of Aristotle. See Mr.
Kenyon s note on Damasias, p. 33.
iv THE PEOPLE S FAITH IN DIONYSUS 133
trust in the coming of the god, is still heard in a prayer
written by Sophocles, and uttered for luckless Antigone at
a time of breathless crisis in her fate. 1
" Come, for all the people tremble at the threatened harm.
Pass thou with purifying footsteps down Parnassus slope,
ay ! or cross the booming gulf of waters. Help ! Leader
thou of fire-flaming planets in the dance. Help ! Overseer
thou of cries men make through sleepless watches of the
night. Show thee now, son of Zeus begotten ! Come and
bring from Naxos in thy train the frenzied Thyiades thy
handmaidens, who all the livelong night dance thee,
thee lacchos, O dispenser thou and steward for mankind."
The peculiar and startling locution here may be supposed
to represent the acts of the dancing Thyiades, as a sort of
materialisation of his power in them, their dancing is the
god in them made manifest. The invocation which intro
duces this same prayer well shows the wide tolerance which
gathered into Athenian worship epithets and rites from every
home of the god in Greece ; for many are his homes, and
numerous indeed were the places of his birth. " Thou who
bearest many names, Semele s delight, who watchest over
far-famed Icaria 2 and rulest where all are welcome, in the
sheltered lowlands of Eleusinian Deo. O dweller in
Thebes of the softly gliding Ismenus, in Thebes the mother
of Bacchanals. Thou hast shown thee amid the smoky
glare of flaming torches, arriving on Parnassus mountain of
twin peaks. Near these two peaks live nymphs close to
the cave Corycian, and there flow Castalia s fountain springs.
1 Antigone, 1115-1152.
2 That this is the right reading can hardly be denied by any one who has
read pp. 96 and 97 of Dr. Merriam s Report. The conditions upon which
Professor Jebb said he would read Icaria (see, in his ist edition, note on
line 1119) are now fulfilled, and he is half convinced (cf. his 2d edition).
1 34 DIONYSUS AT A THENS i v
Yea, the ivy tangled in the folds of Nysa s 1 hills, the tender
green of lofty promontories covered with luxuriant vines
send down to Thebes the Saviour God, and her streets are
filled with the heavenly clangour of his echoing name.
Thebes, dearly of him and of his thunder-smitten mother
dearly loved ! " Truly the ring of a most genuine piety
sounds in many a passage of the Attic tragedians, but here
Sophocles has certainly surpassed himself. The anxiety
felt by Dionysus peasant worshippers was that their god
should be duly propitiated. They wished to conciliate his
favour for Athens and Attica. Nothing could accomplish
this unutterably desirable end but the official celebration of
his festivals.
In satisfying this demand by his two feasts, the Anthe-
steria and the Lenaea, Pisistratus called Thespis and Tragedy
from Icaria. But this performance of plays, once trans
ferred to the broader horizon of the capital, soon grew to
such proportions that it threatened to crowd out the indis
pensable and immemorial religious acts required to be
done by all worshippers for the health of the state. Thus
the deep religious purpose for which Dionysus and his wor
ship were honoured at Athens would have been unfulfilled.
To remedy this came the later institution of the Greater
Dionysia, by which the most important representations of
tragedies and comedies were relegated to a third and al
most exclusive theatrical occasion made for the worship of
Dionysus. The month of March was fixed upon for this
festival, which seems to have been wonderfully free from
the trammels of mystic nature-worship. It was indeed a
new institution made in the spirit of the democratic reforms
1 On Nysa, see Appendix III. at the end of this lecture, upon the second
birth and eastern affinities of Dionysus.
iv THE GREATER DIONYSIA 135
of Clisthenes to honour the people s most beloved god.
The name by which it was sometimes called was the
City Dionysia^ but its commoner name was the Greater
Dionysia.
The gorgeous pageants of Venice in all her glory seem
unspontaneous and almost insincere when compared with
this great Athenian glorification of Dionysus. Patriotism
intensified, exultant freedom, delight in beauty, delicate
skill in all graceful arts, animated and adorned this World-
Exhibition of high thoughts and melodious speech. There
Dionysus shone, a leader of the Muses, and the Graces
moved in his train. So transfigured was the Thracian god
that all the savagery of his ancient worship now became a
unison of speech and song and dance, a dazzling mani
festation of all concordant arts, wherein there shone the
blithest and the best that sculpture ever shaped or poetry
conceived.
And now it is time to contemplate the god himself in
all his Attic and comprehensive majesty. The enlightened
Attic worshipper of Bacchus sought at the Athenian Diony-
siac theatre, in the presence of the older gods, solemnly
represented by their priests, a relief from that sense of
spiritual oppression from which the human conscience has
never been entirely free. As an analogy to the idea that
" in Adam s fall we sinned all," may be found underlying
this Attic ceremonial the idea of a vicarious complicity in
the old-time murder of the Icarian king, 1 and of a predes
tined responsibility for the sad fate of Erigone.
All the great Athenian tragedies were acts of worship
1 To speak of Icarius as a king is to use the language of the later and
Athenian version of the legend which makes him king of Athens. This
seems to be the version alluded to by Hyginus, Fab. 130, and by Pausanias,
I. ii. 7, end.
136 DIONYSUS AT ATHENS iv
dedicated to Dionysus, 1 but one of them is called the
Bacchanals, the last but one of all plays written by the
latest born of the three great tragedians, Euripides. The
Bacchanals enacts and explains as its sole plot and plan,
utters as the burden of all its choral songs, the fulness of the
power of Dionysus. Here no aspect of the Bacchic god
head is forgotten. Nowhere in all literature is the strange
baffling quality of Dionysus presented with such complete
ness and consistency as in this play of Euripides. Here is a
tragedy written with the sincerely pious intent of revealing the
spirit and the will of the god a veritable Gospel according to
Euripides. A gospel truly, and of Dionysus ; but of what
Dionysus ? Is the god of this marvellous play the vision
of him, that is, which was granted to Euripides in the ful
ness of his powers a revelation from the purely Attic
worship of Dionysus, or a reminiscence of the fiercer
Thracian god, or is he a philosopher s fiction argued about
and reduced to consistency until he has lost the wild-wood
tang attached to his native self? The answer must be that
he is not one but all of these in one. Euripides no doubt
would be the first to feel that a poet could only gain by a
seeming inconsistency in an attempt to interpret the most
inconsistent of all divinities.
Hence the many aspects of the Bacchanals. It may be
1 This fact needs frequent reassertion in answer to those who are
inclined to put a poet like Euripides in the position of a modern assailant
of religion. The circumstance that he wrote tragedies at all ought to clear
him of any such charge. As Bernhardy has most truly said, People are
sometimes oblivious of the fact that the whole structure of Greek religious
service and their whole scheme of nature -worship remained wholly un
shaken and intact until the Peloponnesian war or thereabouts. Accord
ingly such fault-finding or doubt as poets and thinkers express relates to
morals and to certain misrepresentations of the divine nature, and did not
come near the heart of their national religion." Litter aturgeschichte, i.
p. 420.
iv THE BACCHANALS OF EURIPIDES 137
called the Passion-play of Attica, and it has been compared to
the Medieval Morality. And yet a certain loftiness of religious
tone does not here exclude the most unmistakable reminis
cences of the fierce and awful god of ancient Thrace. The
philosophic and discerning reader may see in the mother
who rends her own son in Agave and all her Maenad
train a spirited personification of the power in a roaring
mountain torrent, and of the fury of lapping flames ; but he
will not press the point too far if he remembers that Euri
pides wrote his play while he was staying at the court of
Archelaus in Macedonian Pieria, that very portion of Thrace
whence Dionysus issued. It is as if a pilgrimage to the land
of his birth were required by the god himself of a poet
whose presentation of the Bacchic godhead was to perpetuate
its undimmed memory. 1
Something wilder than religious Athens knew surrounded
Euripides and every Athenian who visited Macedonia in
those days. Such visitors "would hear, and from time
to time actually see, something of a religious custom
in which the habit of an earlier world might seem to
survive. As they saw the lights flitting over the moun
tains, and heard the wild sharp cries of the women, there
was presented a singular fact in the more prosaic actual life
of a later time, an enthusiasm otherwise relegated to the
wonderland of a distant past, in which a supposed primitive
harmony between man and nature renewed itself." 2 It is
1 It has already been noted above that Pisistratus, during his second
exile, spent most of his time in Thrace. On returning this was his
second restoration he was enabled to encourage the innovations of
Thespis, and give official sanction to the peasant worship of the Thracian
god. See Aristotle s Constitution of Athens, 15, and Mr. Kenyon s refer
ence there to Herodotus allusion to supplies drawn by Pisistratus airo
2 Here, as below, I quote from Mr. Pater s essay.
138 DIONYSUS AT ATHENS iv
well known that the women of the house of Philip and
Alexander were carried into measureless excesses by the
possession of the god. They were Bacchanals with a
vengeance, and all the dreadful deeds attributed by Euri
pides to his Bacchanals would therefore be looked upon
by them as a poetic amplification only of what lay within
their own experience. "Later sisters of Centaur and
Amazon, the Maenads, as they beat the earth in strange
sympathy with its waking up from sleep, or as in the
description of the messenger, in the play of Euripides,
they lie sleeping in the glen revealed among the morning
mists, were themselves indeed as remnants flecks left
here and there, and not quite evaporated under the hard
light of a later and common day of a certain cloud-world
which had once covered all things in a veil of mystery."
It is indeed marvellous that our poet in this very play, so
well fitted to please a semi -barbarous Macedonian taste,
so full of the proto-Thracian spirit of Dionysus, has been
able to remain true to the loftier teachings of Anaxagoras
and Socrates. The fact nevertheless remains that a leaven,
half of philosophy and wholly religious, so pervades this
play that it not only sums up the past but prefigures the
future. It contains, revealed here and there in brief flashes,
what may be called a Messianic vision. Less manifestly
perhaps than Virgil, and yet perhaps more deeply, Euripides
is moved by a vision long beforehand of religious truth to
come. In the sorrows and the joys of Dionysus and his
train, touches come here and there which are, it would
seem, the outcome of a Dionysus-granted power of prophecy.
Euripides had vision long beforehand of the mysteries
of faithful sorrowing, the ecstasies of Christian joy. This
is no new discovery, for in the days of the early Church
iv MESSIANIC VISION OF EURIPIDES 139
the Christian poet Nonnus devoted his energies to a
long and most loving work, chronicling with minute and
pious care, often in most sweetly flowing verse, all that has
ever been sung or said of Dionysus. Still more striking
was the appreciation of Dionysus shown by the pious com
piler of a curious work called Christus Pattens. To this
devout Christian s uncramped and unpremeditated piety was
given the vision of a real analogy between the passion of
Christ and the passion of Dionysus. Moreover we owe,
strangely enough, the preservation of some important lines
in the play of Euripides to his curious cento.
And now before analysing the Bacchanals one caution
must be given. None must suppose that the personage
named Dionysus, who proclaims himself to be the god dis
guised in mortal form, is the only presentation of the god
head. This disguised Dionysus is in some ways still what
we may suppose the one speaker used by Thespis in his
earliest Icarian ventures to have been. He is not Dionysus
but only a focal point around which gather, with endless and
flickering play of change, the constantly shifting figures in
the plot. The Maenads who followed the Dionysus-man
from Asia, and who form the chorus of the play, are them
selves the god. The Dionysus-driven women of Thebes
who against their will are dashed from home to revel on the
mountain side, these are but passive receivers of the Bacchic
godhead "Impotent pieces of the game he plays."
King Pentheus, though he loudly proclaims himself the
foe of Dionysus, is only possessed by the mad frenzy sent
by Zagreus-Dionysus, the wild Thracian huntsman who has
found his furious way through Cretan legends. Dionysus,
in some of his many phases, is manifested by any and every
personage in the play. Even the scene of its enactment is
1 40 DIONYS US AT A THENS i v
full of the god, for it is the holy spot in Thebes l where
Semele died in bringing Dionysus prematurely to his birth.
We see the thunder-smitten ruins where Semele was slain.
Their smoking embers are hallowed by a fitful flame. This
is the god of fire actually present, and to him the spot had
long been made consecrate by order of Cadmus, when Cad
mus still was king. To mark them twice his own, Dionysus
has covered these smoking ruins with his cherished vine.
The play opens with the arrival at this place in Thebes
of the youthful god who soliloquises : Behold Zeus s son
arrived at Thebes, where fire consumed his mother Semele.
He surveys the scene, and proclaims his own presence
marked by flame and by the vine. Then our Dionysus, in
mortal disguise, looks out upon the world and sees the same
godhead made manifest on every side, and recognised every
where as pre-eminent. Nature with her floods and flames
and all her luxury of green is his, for his power has made it ;
and man also, up to the present moment, has been prompt
to pay him homage. The Lydians on their fields flooded
with gold, the Phrygians and Persia s burning plains, the
forts of Bactria and the snow-swept reaches of Media, all
Araby the blest with the swarming cities of Asia Minor,
have acknowledged the god. Now Greece must bow the
knee before him. His night-long revels must be loved ; and
the reveller, in order no doubt to keep before him a sign of
the star-flecked sky at eve, at midnight, and at dawn, must
adopt the garb beloved of Dionysus a dappled fawn skin.
The god made man proceeds to tell what brought him to
Thebes. The madding impulses that Dionysus sends invited
1 Cf. Pausanias, IX. xii. 3 : 0a&lt;rt S ol G^/Moi, Kadon r??s d/f/307r6X ea?y
dyopd afaaiv e0 TJ/J.UV ireiroiTjTat., KaS/xou TO dpxcuov oiK.lav elvac
TOV
TOVTOV 5 Kal es
iv ANALYSIS OF THE INTRODUCTION 141
by the insults heaped upon his dearest mother Semele at
Thebes, and by an impious resistance there offered to his wor
ship, have seized and carried away the womankind of all the
town. The men are slower, more stubborn and prone to fight,
though the battle be a losing one. The women of Cadmus
house have gone stark mad and have left their homes to
revel in the wilderness of Cithaeron, and, lest they should
not be filled enough with his power, Dionysus in the flesh
now goes to them, and leaves those other Dionysus-driven
creatures, his Maenad followers who came to Thebes with
him from far-off Asia. With his exit toward Mount
Cithaeron ends the opening and introductory scene of the
play its prologue.
In the act of going Dionysus makes a sign at which the
Asiatic Maenads, the Bacchanals from whom the play is
named, troop wildly into the theatre ; and the street around
Pentheus royal palace resounds with the beating of drums
and Bacchic cries. The disguised Bacchus, the man-
Dionysus, their youthful captain, is gone, but the god
Dionysus still is there, and his voice is heard in the strains
now sung by this Bacchanalian throng.
They tell of their weary journeyings made sweet by
Dionysus love. They warn the polluted and the profane
to beware and give way, for the god is to speak in them.
Then comes a divine song which tells of blessed mysteries.
Blest is he who hallows his manner of life, and cleaves with
his soul most straitly to the Thiasos fulfilled with the god,
the Thiasos madly scouring the mountains ; for thus shall
his soul be purged and made most clean. Yea, and with
the worship of the god must be joined reverence for the
great mother goddess Cybele. " Then on, Bacchanals, on !
ye Bacchants, lead ye Dionysus home to Thebes."
1 42 DIONYSUS AT ATHENS iv
The next strain sings of thunder - smitten Semele, of
Zeus, who snatched her babe to his thigh, whence it came
in due season to full and fated birth. 1
" Thebes," so shouts the Maenad throng, " Thebes, the
nurse of Semele, deck thee now and yield to Bacchic
promptings
Branches of ivy or of oak
Take thou, a very Bacchanal ;
Nor let the Bacchant s dappled cloak
Of fawn-skin from thy shoulders fall,
White-fringe it all with wool-tufts small ;
The ferule wield with reverent care,
And of its wantonness beware."
And now the risen surge of song beats higher still, and
higher rises the quickening pulse of the inflowing god, for
they cry
Soon shall the country rejoice in the dance,
Soon with his revellers Bacchus advance,
Into the hills, the hills shall he fare.
Then for a time not Dionysus, but a peculiar aspect of
Zeus is the theme of the sacred song. They sing of the
Zeus of Crete, who is after all not the father of Dionysus but
Dionysus himself. Euripides certainly was conscious of
this, and he means at least to suggest that Crete was a
debatable ground, where the legends of Dionysus and
Zeus met and overlapped. The Curetes in their Cretan
haunts, the wildly dancing Corybantes so picturesquely sung
of here, surrounded the birth and protected the rearing of
1 Dr. Sandys, in his excellent note on this passage, refers to the epithet
rjfUT&effTos, half-matured, used of Dionysus by Nonnus, Dionysiaca, xlv.
99 ; see also i. 5, and he also cites Ovid, F. iii. 717, puer ut posses maturo
tempore nasci, expletum patrio corpore matris onus. See upon this curious
feature of the myths the Appendix at the end of this lecture.
iv ENTRANCE-SONG OF THE BACCHANALS 143
this Cretan Zeus-Dionysus. The mother goddess Rhea is
associated with him in Crete, just as Cybele is united with
Dionysus in Phrygian worship. Moreover the Maenads
of our chorus immediately pass to a song of the invention
of various Bacchic instruments the drum, the flute, and
the cymbal. We hear that all these were instruments for
praising Cybele and Dionysus, or, if so you choose to say it,
of Rhea and of Cretan Zeus.
That this whole song was profoundly religious is no doubt
sufficiently evident, but the religious intent is nowhere more
undisguisedly present than in its closing strain, where the
ecstasies of pious revellings are wildly sung with the cry,
"Evoe, Bacchus leads on and hearts are thrilled," which
comes from promptings of the god himself. After this the
miracles worked by Dionysus are touched upon. Here and
elsewhere in the play the poet tells of the miraculous flow of
milk and honey 1 that springs from the ground at the bidding
of his Bacchant revellers. On they go, beating drums, singing
1 In this and other passages of the play where Dionysus followers
show miraculous command over honey, Euripides indicates his familiarity
with an out-of-the-way legend of Dionysus at home in the island of Euboea,
which lay near by, under the jealous governance of Athens, and which was
largely occupied in the poet s day by Athenian colonists. According to
these legends Dionysus was reared in Euboea (anciently called Macris,
or Long-island) by Aristaeus, the giver of honey, who was his constant
instructor. His nurse in Euboea was a nymph, who is sometimes said to
have been named Macris. Nysa, a name familiar as applied in many
Dionysus-stories to the moist and wooded place where the fiery god came
to birth, was a second name given to this Euboean nurse of Dionysus.
Whether her name was Nysa or Macris, this Euboean maiden was Aris
taeus daughter. The remarkable point to remember from these Euboean
legends is the prominence in them of milk and of honey, two good gifts
from which Dionysus is dissociated in the earliest Attic story. Further
more, it is noticeable that Euripides, in weaving these bright Euboean
strands into his play, made it plain that he regarded himself as a religious
interpreter for the whole of Greece and not for Attica alone. For an
account of the wider scope of the legends of Dionysus birth at Nysa, see
Appendix III. at the end of this chapter.
144 DIONYSUS AT ATHENS iv
Evoe to the Evian god. Phrygian shouts they shout, while
flutes trill in their revels to thrill them with rippling joys.
But while we look, as with a flash from many white limbs
darting forward, they have passed ere has died on the ear
their shout, " On, Bacchants, on ! "
Now the plot begins to thicken, and the three central
acts, courses, or periods what you will now begin. The
whole play has five parts, of which the introductory one is
already over. At the end comes the fifth and concluding
part, a winding-up of the play.
In the three central acts now beginning is portrayed the
Passion, as it were, of Dionysus. In the first act, Reason
fails to turn the enemy, King Pentheus, from his impious
purposes against the god. Here, at the very outset, the
flutter of frenzy to come hovers over Pentheus the arch-
sinner, and he already belongs to Dionysus. In the second
act comes the consummation of blinded Pentheus sin.
The man-Dionysus, the vicar of the god in Thebes, is seized
and thrown into prison. The Maenads from Asia are
threatened with violence, and the Theban revellers on
Mount Cithaeron are hunted, and some of them taken
and thrown into prison. But close upon the heels of sin
treads punishment. The third act sets forth the nature
and the manner of an awful chastisement inflicted upon
King Pentheus, on all his house and on the land of
Thebes. An earthquake comes first to reveal the wrath
and majesty of outraged Dionysus. Out of the midst of
the earthquake the man-Dionysus emerges from his dark
prison, reminding Eleusinian hearers of Persephone restored
from the realms of Hades to Demeter and the day. He
comes to foil and flout his half -crazed persecutor, as
appears in the next event on the stage. Madness seizes
iv CENTRAL ACTS AND CONCLUSION 145
Pentheus, madness and the judgment of flood and fire,
those attendant ministers of the earthquake which are
personified in the Theban Maenads. These finally rend
Pentheus and reduce him to a shapeless and dismembered
heap of fragments. The wages of sin is madness first,
and finally death. So ends the Passion of Dionysus in
the destruction of his persecutor in whose dismember
ment we see rehearsed the tragic fate of Dionysus-Zagreus.
The conclusion or Exodus of the play sets forth a moral
that recalls the purifying ritual introduced with Delphian
Apollo s sanction from the border town of Eleutherae. 1
The moral in point is, that there is need of Dionysus help
in recovering from harms brought about by his own power,
and with it is coupled an urgent representation of the folly
of all resistance to the god.
Such is a brief outline of the central acts and conclusion
of the play, whose noble introduction has been examined
already at length. It now remains to take an equally care
ful view of these four main parts. To begin with the first
scene, where the intending sinner is still on his probation.
The transgressor in question is Pentheus the son of Agave,
Semele s sister, into whose hands his grandfather Cadmus
has resigned the royal power at Thebes. Tiresias the seer
is first seen upon the stage. His name is Tiresias, but he
has suffered a Bacchic change into something not himself;
and his gospel is the method of Bacchic madness. This
Tiresias is not the dread shade that defies in Homeric
song the power of darkness and seems to live in death.
Nor is he the Tiresias of Sophocles, that majestic incarna
tion of wisdom whose mighty wrath and burning scorn
cowed even the spirit of Oedipus the Great. Tiresias in
1 See above, Appendix II., on Dionysus of Eleutherae.
L
146 DIONYSUS AT ATHENS iv
the Bacchanals is grotesque, if we forget that Dionysus
has entered into him and possessed him, when he comes
upon the stage attired in a Bacchic garb, ill-suited alike to
his years and his priestly office. He is bent upon taking
his part in Bacchic revellings, and is in the act of seeking
another a companion old like himself, and like himself ill-
suited for the dance. This companion appears ; he is the
royal Cadmus, and shows at the outset eagerness even
greater than that of Tiresias for gambolling in the wilder
ness of Cithaeron, saying :
Where leads the dance, where must we take our turn
And toss our gray-haired heads ? Interpret thou,
Aged Tiresias ; lead my old age,
For thou art wise. The livelong day and night
Untiring with my thyrsus I ll smite earth.
Tis sweet for us when we our age forget. 1
Tiresias ends by seeming the less grotesque of the two ;
it is he who turns apologist for Dionysus, and very skilfully
his argument begins :
" We reason not o er nicely of the gods,
They are the heirlooms by our fathers left,
As old as time ; no logic shall destroy them,
Not though the keenest wit should prompt the thought.
Scoff not at old men dancing, mock not at these ivy crowns
on our silvered heads," he says,
1 The merit of having established, by changing one letter in the MS.,
the undoubted reading here belongs to Milton. See Dr. Sandys on this
line. He says of Milton s emendations, "They were written in the
margin of his copy of the edition of Euripides printed by Paul Stephens
at Geneva in 1602, 2 vols. 410, now in possession of Henry Halford
Vaughan, Esq., of Upton Castle, Pembroke. Milton bought it in 1634,
the very year in which he wrote Comus, which was acted at Michaelmas of
that year, and shows in several points special familiarity with this and
other plays of Euripides. Cf. especially Comus, 297-301 with Iph. T.,
264-274.
iv FIRST GREAT ACT 147
The god hath not distinguished if the young
Or if the older man should join the dance,
Claiming from all alike service and honour.
But look, Tiresias and Cadmus cease their talk and retire
up the stage. Hurrying footsteps interrupt them, and they
see from afar Pentheus ; he comes breathless, and quivers
from head to foot when he pauses. This sort of tremor
is a well-known sign of approaching madness. The tie is
close that binds the aged Cadmus of Sidon to this new-comer.
Pentheus is twice over Cadmus grandson ; through Echion
his father earth-born, sprung from the dragon s teeth which
Cadmus sowed near the spring of Dirce at Thebes ; and
through his mother Agave, Cadmus own daughter. Accord
ingly in this scene where Pentheus is most nearly his native
self he shows a certain affection for Cadmus, the only glad
ness in him, for he was otherwise all grief, even as his name
implied. 1 Tiresias and Cadmus moved our laughter when
they first entered ; contrasted now with Pentheus they take
on the semblance of calm and almost of dignity.
Words chase each other out of Pentheus mouth.
He was abroad. News came of Theban women revelling
on Cithaeron, wild with that strange impostor Dionysus.
" It is a shame ! these women cloak impure desires with
professed piety. But," he screams, " I have caught some
of them " ; and then adds, with a cruel sneer, " I am after the
others. Agave my mother, and her sisters Ino and
Autonoe, are of the band, and all shall be prisoned."
Thinking of the Dionysus-man, he adds :
To us a being strange is come, they say,
From Lydian lands, a wizard and a cheat,
1 His name is a Greek equivalent for Tristan, the man of sorrow.
148 DIONYSUS AT ATHENS iv
With golden curls and fragrant flowing hair.
His wine-flushed glance hath Aphrodite s charm, 1
And day and night he wanders with them there.
Here Pentheus refers to the revellers on Cithaeron. Soon,
losing all self-control, he says blasphemously :
I ll end the thumping of his thyrsus-wand
And all the tossing of his locks : his head
Shall fall, by this hand from his body sundered.
Sneers at Dionysus fire-birth and Semele s fame and fate ;
scoffs at Dionysus second birth from Zeus s thigh, 2 coupled
with insults heaped upon the memory of Dionysus well-
beloved mother, now follow quickly, and the blasphemer is
so wholly engrossed in his blaspheming that he fails to see
the two old men who have been hovering in the background
awaiting opportunity to address him. Now, with a wild
start at their Bacchic trappings, Pentheus whirls a torrent
of angry words upon them. He fairly goes mad with rage.
Tiresias is responsible ; Tiresias must be gaoled with the
women captured from Cithaeron. A gleam of moderation
revisits him just here ; after all, Tiresias is too old for such
treatment, he says. Those women, though, must and shall
be kept from wine. " Wine-bibbing is no meat for woman
kind ! " exclaims the tumultuous-minded king. The quality
of Tiresias, as Sophocles portrayed him, now shows in his
wrathful answer to the king.
1 Dr. Sandys is very happy in quoting here two lines of the Comus,
752, 753, which very probably were inspired by this passage :
What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that,
Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn ?
- Here as in other blasphemies of Pentheus we have a picturesque state
ment of the doubts and difficulties felt by reasoning men concerning certain
grotesque features in the myth of Dionysus. See Appendix at the end of
this chapter.
iv THE PROBATION OF PENTHEUS 149
Sham wisdom oils and glibly wags thy tongue,
But all thy argument is foolishness.
A bold man skilled in overmastering speech,
If sense abides not in him, harms the state.
And here Tiresias, inspired less by the god perhaps than
by the over-subtle reasonings about gods and men which he
so eloquently scorned earlier in the play, subjects the tale
of Dionysus second birth to a treatment half meant in
earnest and half intended as an answer to the fool according
to his folly. 1 To understand the subtlety of his argument
here, it must be understood that meros is the Greek word
meaning piece or part, while meros means thigh.
"Scorn not," says the subtle seer Tiresias, "but rever
ently repeat the tale how Zeus plucked to Olympus the babe
unborn. Thence Hera strove to fling him down, but she
was foiled. To defeat her Zeus took a piece," a meros
"from earth -encircling ether. This phantom babe was
abandoned to Hera. The real Dionysus babe, meanwhile,
was firmly sewed with golden needles into Zeus s thigh "
his meros. After this sophism Tiresias ends his justification
of the ways of Dionysus by telling Pentheus of the god s
miraculous power. " Bacchus," he says, " is a prophet and a
warrior. The radiant peaks of lofty Parnassus are redolent
of the god by day and night
Thou shalt descry him still : on Delphi s rocks
He bounds torch-dancing o er their twin-peak d alps,
Flinging and whirling the leafy thyrsus-wand."
Another phase of Tiresias defence of the god is an answer
to the king s wild accusation taxing the Bacchanals with
wantonness. This passage is worth remembering, because,
1 For further discussion of this curious defence of the faith, see Appendix
III. at the end of this chapter.
1 50 DIONYS US AT A THENS i v
taken with a passage from the messenger s speech, 1 it con
tains our poet s pious understanding of the revels of Bacchan
alian women, and because Milton admired it, and expanded it
in a well-known passage of his Comus? It runs as follows: 3
1 The other passage is one of the most wonderful in the play, vv. 677-
688 :
Late as to pasture forth I led my kine. . . .
While gleaming sunrise sped its warmth to earth,
I saw three bands of women-revellers :
The first Autonoe ruled, the second band
Thy mother Agave. Ino led the third.
Lapped all in slumber lay their limbs relaxed,
Some couched on heaped-up twigs of silver fir,
Some pillowed on oak-leaves, their heads low laid
Reclining where they might, yet as they should ;
Not right thy word, that, overcome with wine
And with the sounding flute, they left their lords
To hunt for Cypris through the wilderness.
2 Directly inspired by vv. 314-318 which follow in the text, indirectly
by the ones quoted in the last note, and by the wildwood spirit of the
Bacchanals which he has woven in a wonderfully original fashion into the
whole of his masque, are Milton s justly celebrated lines in praise of
chastity, Comus, 418-475. The process of picturesque expansion to which
the most classical of English poets has thus subjected the most romantic of
the Greek classics has its parallel in Goethe s expansion of Iph. Taur.
1401, 1402 :
A sister s love thou feelest, goddess, too ;
I yielded but to that, I love my kin,
into the following, where the terseness of the original is sadly lacking :
Du liebst, Diane, deinen holden Bruder
Vor allem was dir Erd und Himmel bietet,
Und wendest dein jungfraulich Angesicht
Nach seinem ew gen Lichte sehnend still.
O lass den einz gen Spatgefundnen mir
Nicht in der Finsterniss des Wahnsinns rasen.
It is curious to find Milton and Goethe playing so decidedly the part of
romanticists as compared with Euripides ; it is equally curious to find
in these instances so complete an exemplification of Mr. Sidney Colvin s
definition of classical and romantic writing : "in classical writing every
idea is called up to the mind as nakedly as possible, and at the same time
as distinctly ; it is exhibited in white light and left to produce its effect by
its own unaided power. In romantic writing, on the other hand, all
objects are exhibited as it were through a coloured and iridescent atmo
sphere." Preface to Selections from Landor. 3 Vv. 314-318.
iv PENTHEUS IS DEAF TO REASON 151
Not Dionysus strength, when Cypris calls,
Shall make a woman chaste. Inborn and bred,
Bone of her bone, is thorough chastity
Where she is chaste. Tis worth our weighing well :
She that is chaste may not corrupted be
For all her Bacchanalian revellings.
Finally, despairing utterly of converting so blatant a
sinner as Pentheus, the prophet shows a sad foreknowledge
in his closing words :
Thou art crazed to death, nor hast thou drugs,
Nor findest none to cure thee, drugged with folly !
Now Cadmus seconds his companion s urgent reasonings
and beseeches Pentheus not to persecute Dionysus, not
to neglect the mountain revels, but, by leaving Thebes
for Cithaeron, to stay at home with righteousness. After
the plea of wisdom has failed, the voice of pleading love
still sounds : " My son," says Cadmus, " stay at home
with us; cross not the threshold into outer lawlessness."
Here Cadmus strives by an ingenious way of putting his
thought to humour in words the dangerous frenzy of
Pentheus while he really contradicts him. Pentheus is all
for staying at home, and therefore Cadmus talks of going
out to the wilderness as the only real way left open for
staying at home, a novel way of presenting the gist of the
adage ubi bene ibi patria^ But Pentheus is obdurate, and
Cadmus humours him still more ; granting that he may be
right in scorning Dionysus godhead, there are considera
tions of family policy which ought to make Pentheus wink
at the divine pretensions of his cousin the son of Semele,
the sister of his mother Agave.
But all arguments and all management are vain. Pen-
1 Or, as Menander puts it, T yap /caAws irpavcrovTi ira&lt;ra. yr] Trarpts.
1 52 DIONYSUS AT A THENS i v
theus can no longer contain himself. He fairly foams
with rage at the end of Cadmus expostulation. Fiercely
he turns away, and despatches men to the holy places
where Tiresias practises augury. These must be entirely
destroyed. Against the cheating stranger, the Dionysus-
man, he sends guards saying :
That girl-shaped vagrant, bringer of this pest
We know not of, the man-shaped Dionysus,
The worker of abominations Stone him !
Thus cries frantic Pentheus, and Tiresias bodingly mur
murs to Cadmus as they go,
May Pentheus never bring
His namesake Grief, O Cadmus, to thy home.
This first act of the play now closes with a lyric cry
from the Maenad worshippers of Dionysus.
Holiness with her pinions of gold is summoned to
earth that she may record the blasphemies of Pentheus.
Dionysus is praised as the god of garlands and feasts, of
dancing, thyrsus in hand, and of sweet shrillings from flutes.
His gifts are wine and riddance of lingering sadness, with
sleep that closes great joy. " Lawless folly ends in harm.
Peace and soundness of mind under the watchful gods bring
concord and happiness. But," the song and its singers main
tain, "there is wisdom and wisdom. Man s wisdom can
bring him to folly :
No true wisdom comes from being wise
In dizzy thought that past man s level flies."
But enough of calm reasonings, the lyric song now
breaks away from contemplation, and revelry is its theme.
Revelry and some place not curst like Thebes with Pentheus
iv THE SECOND GREAT ACT 153
sin. " Oh for Cyprus, Aphrodite s isle ! Lead on to Pieria
and high Olympus steep, great Bromius ! " The course of
song finally grows more calm. Through jollity of feasts,
through prosperity and peace that breeds stout men, the
lyric ode goes on its way, showing the mercy of Dionysus
and his loving-kindness.
To him whose fortunes rise,
To him whose hopes decline,
He gives glad gifts alike ; to none denies
The painless joys of wine.
At the end comes a prayer which is partly an argument :
Through every night and day
To live through life the happy way
From froward men withdrawn apart !
For me the throngs of lowlier men ; their creed,
Their way of life, be graven on my heart !
Thus closes the first great act, which we may call the
Probation of Pentheus. The second great act which now
begins gives an account of the Sin of Pentheus^ which is the
Passion of Dionysus^ and the third and last great act depicts
the Perdition of Pentheus.
At the opening of the second act a guard leads in the
Dionysus-man, the Asian reveller whose unresisting ways had
won his captors hearts, and awed them into recognition of
his godhead. This prisoner is welcomed by Pentheus with
blasphemous exultation, although a warning comes with
him. The guard who leads Dionysus prisoner reports the
first of the miracles that foreshadow the awful judgment of
Dionysus. The women from Cithaeron, in whose capture
Pentheus so exulted, have been freed as by enchant
ment from their bonds. Self- loosened, their shackles fell
1 54 DIONYSUS AT A THENS iv
away and invisible hands have burst their prison bars.
Pentheus hears all this unmoved, and scorns the pressing
appeal of the rough and ready guard to change from his
wilful impiety. Turning to the prisoner, the king pays an
unwilling tribute to his loveliness in words that well describe
the latter-day Dionysus, a type with which we are most
familiar
Thy frame is not unshapely, stranger,
Not wrestling made this hair of thine so long.
Its gracious flow half hides thy very cheek ;
Thy skin is white to help thy scoundrel schemes.
Not sunburnt thou, but pampered in the shade.
Then begins a strange duel of words between Pentheus and
the god. "What is thy name?" King Pentheus harshly
asks. "Not hard to know, for I was born in flowery
Tmolus," is the answer. "What are these new rites of
thine ? " the king then asks. At the answer, " They are of
Dionysus," Pentheus loses all self-control, and pours out
abuse upon Zeus and Semele and the night orgies in honour
of Dionysus. "What shape," the king again asks, "do
these precious orgies take?" "That may not be told to
men unholy ; the revellers have gifts well worth the know
ing, though thou shalt not hear." Flurried by the god s
unwavering tone of reprimand, Pentheus nevertheless puts
a bold face upon the matter, and, after sneering, invites
still sterner reproof by asking how the god looked when
he showed himself to the faithful. " Even as he willed,"
the answer comes, " not shaped by my command."
After this the king crazily dashes out with wild attacks
upon the Bacchic ritual, but at each onset he is checked
and checkmated by stern reprisals from the inflexible god
whose human representative stands before him. Gradually
iv THE SIN OF PENTHEUS 155
Pentheus loses his head so completely that he has to be
guided, so to speak, towards his own iniquitous purpose.
His sin approaches consummation when, in answer to
Dionysus words " Tell me my fate, thy threatened terrors
name," he declares that he will shear off his prisoner s soft
and silken locks.
"My hair is consecrate, I wear it for the god," the
beauteous stranger answers. In spite of this and repeated
warnings, Pentheus snatches away the thyrsus-wand, and is
for putting " the insolent fellow " in prison.
At this point the possession by Dionysus of the Dionysus-
man culminates and gradually becomes complete. Till now
he distinguished between himself and the god, but now
he declares confidently that the god will free him, and to
silence Pentheus sneers, he says of Dionysus
Now present, he now sees what I endure !
Soon after this the culmination com^s, and he is com
pletely the god when he says
He is in me : wicked and blind thou art.
Pentheus, worsted in argument, is about to carry the day
by an appeal to brute force. He has Dionysus bound and
prepared for imprisonment, each step being in spite of
solemn warning. The most solemn of these is where the
god says
Thy life, thy name, thy sin thou knowest not.
At this Pentheus spirit cowers, and all in a tremor he cries
in a dazed way
Pentheus, Echion s son and Agave s I am.
1 56 DIONYSUS AT A THENS i v
And then he hears with terror from the prisoner whom his
men are leading to confinement
Thou and thy name are meet for deep disaster.
" Coop the fellow in the stables," he cries in fear and anger,
"let him dance there with dumb beasts." Speaking of sure
requital to come speedily, the disguised Dionysus disappears
at last with the threatening words addressed to Pentheus
Though thou declares! Dionysus is not,
In binding me thou art confining him.
Now the Bacchanals sing a song of fear and woe. This
is the winter of their discontent, and truly this darkest point
in the play mirrors the sadness and the longing of those
mysterious winter festivals on Mount Parnassus and in
Attica which were always attached to the worship of
Dionysus. The analogy of this festival, which included
rejoicing for the new and mystic birth of the god lamented
so lately, accounts for one theme of this song, a glad wel
coming of the birth of Dionysus.
"Achelous daughter Dirce makes Theban lands yield
abundantly. Dirce, whose waters welcomed the new-born
Dionysus and bathed him that the flames from his father s
bolt might leave no scar," Dirce is now unfriendly to the
revellers in whom dwells the fulness of Dionysus.
Pentheus and his sin soon engross their song. He is a
fierce-glaring monster fitly spawned by earth from dragon s
teeth. They close with a prayer to Dionysus for help. As
it proceeds this prayer becomes an incantation in the spirit
of rude magic charms used by peasants to bring forth nature s
power and ensure full crops.
" Dionysus, dost thou leave thy prophets here to strive
iv CAPTIVE GOOD ATTENDING CAPTAIN ILL 157
in vain? With brandishings of thy most golden thyrsus
come down Olympus. Where in Nysa s wilds or on the
heights Corycian art thou, Dionysus ? Art thou near the
Thracian realm of singing, whose forests followed Orpheus,
marshalled with all wild beasts in his wake ? Lo ! he comes
over Axius. He comes with whirling Maenad train across
the Lydias, father of plenty in the Thracian land of good
horses."
This is the frantic prayer for help of "captive good
attending captain ill," transmuted in the Bacchic fires of faith
so as to become an invocation which reshapes itself at the
close into a song of thanksgiving and praise. It ends with
the strains of Bacchus triumphal march in order to usher
in the Lord of Vengeance whose coming with requital is at
hand. 1
" Make way," so runs the burden of this song of the
judgment of Dionysus,
Let justice be shown and be dread,
For justice make way and her sword ;
1 I cannot do better than quote from Professor Tyrrell s Introduction to
the Bacchanals, where I have found, just at the moment of going to prf 3, a
presentation of the deep religious significance of the whole play from which
my too belated knowledge of his admirable work has prevented me from
profiting sufficiently. Of the various choral odes Professor Tyrrell most
truly says : The parados and the four stasima not only are suitable in a
degree rare in Euripides to the parts of the action at which they are
respectively introduced, but form a whole in themselves and an elaborate
picture of the Bacchic cult. The parodos (vv. 64-169) describes the out
ward form and ritual of the Bacchic worship ; the first stasimon (vv.
370-431) describes its sacred joys, the second stasimon (vv. 519-575)
refers to the birth of the god, the third (vv. 862-911) breaks into tumultuous
enthusiasm and anticipations of triumph, and the fourth (vv. 977-1024)
urges on the hounds of frenzy against the violator of the rites of the
Maenads." Professor Tyrrell refers to Pfander s Die Tragik des Euri
pides, Bern, 1869 ; and also to Scheme s similarly striking account of the
choral odes of the Iphigenia at Aulis, the very last play written by
Euripides.
158 DIONYSUS AT A THENS iv
To his throat shall she set it and smite off the head
Of Echion s earth-spawned offspring untoward,
The godless, the lawless, the froward. 1
With this song ends the Passion of Dionysus. Now comes
the third and last great act, a veritable Vision of Judgment ,
which treats of the Perdition of Pentheus. It begins with
the first revelation which this play contains of Dionysus in
his terrific might. The god comes to the rescue of his
suppliants, and to give judgment against the evildoer.
Forth from the earthquake, which is Dionysus might, 2 steps
smiling and unharmed the prisoner of a moment since.
The veil of the palace of Pentheus has been rent, but Pen
theus, more and more dazed and crazed, is still unabashed.
He is for further harm to Dionysus, but ere he attempts it
he listens to a messenger from Cithaeron. There the might
of the god has shown itself in a judgment as it were of fire.
Crashing down the hills and spreading terror and ruin far
and wide the lava-stream of Maenad women has proclaimed
their lord s resistless might. This appears next in the com
ing of madness which enters the guilty soul of Pentheus.
Crazed by his own rising frenzy and mocked by the dis
guised Dionysus, who leads him towards death, Pentheus
goes to spy out the Maenads at their revels on Cithaeron.
He is himself madly accoutred as a Bacchanal.
Off there on Cithaeron comes the final execution of the
will of Dionysus upon the luckless king. Perched high on
a pine tree, by a mad freak of his own which the disguised
1 Vv. 1010-1013. This is the last song of the chorus.
2 The chief authority for this statement is in this and other passages of
the Bacchanals, and in the identification of Dionysus with fire. Cf. also
a fragment relating to Bacchic orgies from the Edani of Aeschylus,
Dind. 55 : \f/a\/j.6s dAaXdfci ravp6(f)doyyoL 5 virofj.VKu&gt;i&gt;Tai iroBlv
fopepoi [unoi, rviravov 5 ei/cajv &&amp;lt;r6 viroyaiov
/Sapurap/S^s.
iv THE PERDITION OF PENTHEUS 159
Dionysus made haste to gratify before disappearing in a
pillar of fire, Pentheus is spied by the Maenads. They
whirl the tree to the ground and, mad themselves with
Dionysus, they look on the king as a mountain -ranging
lion. 1 Thus these frenzied women surround him, now
darting and dancing light as flickering flames, and now in
mass resistless whirling like a torrent down the mountain side.
Here is the devastating flood that comes with an earthquake
springing upward from unseen sources terrific in its might.
1 In this wild scene Euripides glorifies and does a sort of poetical
justice to country customs which still subsist and have often been fraught
with the shedding of human blood. See Mr. Frazer s interesting chapter
on " Killing the Tree Spirit" (pp. 240-253 of vol. i. in his Golden Bough]
where he gives following Mannhardt and others an account of the
Lower Bavarian custom of various mock executions at Whitsuntide. The
Pfingstl thus executed is like Pentheus here a king of the wood, and
his defeat and death at the hands of another proved that his strength
was beginning to fail, and that it was time his divine life should be lodged
in a less dilapidated tabernacle. " See also F. A. Voigt (article Dionysus"
in Roscher s Mythological Lexicon, p. 1061). There was a legend
(Pausanias, II. ii. 5 and 6) concerning two most sacred Bacchic images at
Corinth, one of Ai/crios and the other of Bd/c%etos. They were made, not
of the wood of the true Cross, but of the wood of the very fir tree upon
which Pentheus was placed by Dionysus, as we read in this play. More
over a command had come from Delphi to worship the tree as the very
god himself TO dtvdpov foa T$&gt; 0e&lt; crtfieLV. From this Voigt rightly con
cludes that the Maenads must have worshipped the tree before felling it.
There was a still more primitive and Asiatic custom in the Thraco- Phrygian
home of Dionysus. There they felled a fir tree once every year, and
carried it in solemn procession to its home the god s temple. Thus in
the Corinthian tale preserved by Pausanias we have record of the ancient
transfer of worship and allegiance from the tree, which was the older incar
nation of Dionysus Dendrites, to the graven image which eventually attached
to itself all worship. Strabo, a wonderfully acute observer of the broadest
aspects of Greek religion, groups together (X. p. 468) Dionysus, Apollo,
Hecate (Proserpina?), the Muses, and Demeter, and ascribes to their
worship TO bpyiavTLKbv TTO.V KO! TO ^aK^KOv /cat TO %opiAc6 , Kal TO irepi
ras TeXeTas /j.v&lt;rTLK6v. Then he adds what is of especial interest in con
junction with Pentheus and the fir tree : devdpofopiai TC Kal \opeiai Kal
reXeTctl Koival TUV deuv efoi TOITTWV. After this he seems to grow con
fused and to take Apollo and the Muses out of this group, where of course,
viewed under certain aspects, they are not at home, though by right of
descent and through ties of early ritual they are indissolubly bound to it.
160 DIONYSUS AT ATHENS iv
The tall fir tree of Pentheus sways and yields, it crashes
to the ground overborne by these flames and floods of
Dionysus. Pentheus himself, when once he touches earth,
is seized by the women. Flames they are no longer,
and they are not floods, but of a sudden they become the
many-handed earthquake which has shaken Thebes, and so
they rend and hideously mangle Pentheus limbs. His
head is plucked from his body, his feet are wrenched from
his legs, his thighs are forced from their sockets, and his
sides are flayed and lacerated foully. Tossed into the air,
his limbs deface the leafage of the trees, and his head is
spiked on a spear to be carried off in triumph by his mother
Agave. The earth was his father s mother, and Agave his
own mother with her three Maenad bands impersonates the
mysterious and wrathful powers of nether earth.
Here, perhaps, if the line is to be drawn at all, comes the
division at which the Perdition of Pentheus ends, and the
fifth part of the play begins.
Filled with the spirit of fierce Dionysus, the wild hunts
man, Agave cries aloud, still madly thinking that she bears
in triumph a lion s head, "Bacchus led on in the chase
wisely, for wise he is. He made the Maenads dart and
hunt this quarry to its lair." With mystical significance the
chorus of Bacchanals from Asia make answer, "Yea, for
our king is a huntsman." Dionysus, plainly, is a jealous
god, visiting the iniquities of Pentheus on his mother Agave,
and his power is so strong that those whom it has once
possessed cannot lightly find returning sense. So it is
that Agave, glorying in the slaughter of a lion the unwitting
murder by her devoted hands of her own and only son, grows
impatient under her father Cadmus vain efforts to restore
her mind, and harps upon grievances against her son.
iv CADMUS CURES AGAVE S MADNESS 161
"How age turns men to crabbedness," she cries. "Would
that, like his mother, my son were a lucky hunter; but heaven-
fighting he is fit for, and good for nothing else." Then she
turns again to Cadmus, saying, "Father! rebuke him roundly.
Bring him here to me." Her mind is bent on having the
head, her glorious hunting-prize, fastened trophy-fashion on
the palace front. She waits for Pentheus to do it.
Wondrously true, wondrously sad is the moment when
Agave ceases to be the god, and comes back to herself at
last.
Cadmus has waited for a pause in his daughter s ravings,
and when it comes he suddenly says, a propos of nothing,
" Look up and scan the sky." l Surprise seems to still her
frenzy, and she asks, "Why bid me look at the sky?" Dis
regarding this question, he asks if the sky seems altered.
Now Agave finds that she sees it more clearly. " Its light
is brighter, things seem to stand more firmly in the world."
"Art thou restored to sense?" finally asks Cadmus, and
his daughter answers
I know thy meaning not, and yet somehow
Sense comes, and from my former mind I change.
Skilfully Cadmus pursues his advantage, and awakens the
slumbering memories of calmer days in Agave s mind.
Finally she turns questioner, and presses him with inquiries
about her own mad doings. With a shriek of despair she
finally recognises the head of her own son in her own
hands, and sees at last that she has murdered him in Bacchic
frenzy, and cries, "We re Dionysus -slain, I see it now."
1 Those who have experience in cases of mental aberration must
admire the truth to fact in this representation of a recovery of sanity under
wise guidance.
M
1 62 DIONYSUS AT ATHENS iv
Cadmus, speaking for the god, 1 makes answer, "Outrage
breeds outrage, you denied his godhead." 2
The winding-up of the Bacchanals in the last one hundred
lines has little further bearing on the divinity of Dionysus
and needs no comment here. It is sufficient to have had a
glimpse in this sublime play 3 of the god as he was conceived
by the Athenians, who worshipped him in the fulness of his
Thracian and Old Attic godhead. From this ruder and
earlier conception much that was not divine but cruel and
barbarous had been separated, but enough of proto-Thracian
harshness and pitilessness, as of the untamed powers of
nature, still attaches to him even in the Bacchanals^ to make
it once more plain that not he, but rather Apollo his brother,
must always represent the most purely Hellenic ideal of a
righteous and beneficent god.
1 In this wonderful scene Cadmus represents the god he incarnates
Dionysus the saviour from Dionysiac madness. It is significant that this
most merciful aspect of Dionysus is the last one presented in the play.
After this Dionysus appears as the deus ex machina, and formally justifies
his dealings with Thebes and the house of Cadmus by appeal to Zeus. See
the Appendix (II.) to the foregoing lecture for an account of this Dionysus
Eleuthereus. Cf. also for a very complete presentation of the cheerful and
beneficent aspects of the Bacchic godhead, the Orphic Hymn to Dionysus
Lysios, No. 50, in Hermann s Collection (Leipzig, 1883). The invoca
tion is :
K\vdi, fj.aKap, Aibs vV, ewiX^vie Ed/t^e, di/JLrjTup,
\v&lt;rte daifj.ov.
2 V. 1298. After the speech of Cadmus immediately following, at v.
1325, Professor Tyrrell says a modern play would have ended.
3 For the presence of the sublime in Euripides, denied by some, we have
the authority of Goethe, who knew well and well appreciated the Bacchanals.
See his translation of the great scene between Agave and Cadmus written
in 1826 (vol. xxix. of Cotta s 1868 edition, pp. 34 and ff.) In his con
versation with Eckermann of the i8th February 1831, he said: " Alle,
die dem Euripides das Erhabene abgesprochen, waren arme Haringe,
und einer solchen Erhebung nicht fahig ; oder sie waren unverschamte
Charlatane, die durch Anmasslichkeit in den Augen einer schwachen Welt
mehr aus sich machen wollten und wirklich machten als sie waren."
APPENDIX III
SECOND BIRTH OF DIONYSUS HIS EASTERN
AFFINITIES
IN Euboea, as in other Aegean Islands such as Naxos
and Icaria, 1 the legends of Dionysus became entangled
with a mass of tradition which belongs to the far Eastern
world. With this is closely connected a record of pre
historic changes in the tribe and family which survives
in the curious story of the second and only real birth
of the god from Zeus s thigh. This complex snarl
of variegated tradition is perhaps most plainly recorded
in the first of two fragments of a hymn to Dionysus. 2
"Some there are who say twas on Draconus, 3 twas
in Icarus, some say ; and some say in Naxos, son of
Zeus who wert sewed in with needles, some say twas
on the banks of Alpheius, the deep eddying river, that
Semele went with thee and brought thee to birth for
Zeus who rejoices in thunders ; others there are, my
king, who relate that at Thebes thou earnest to birth,
all of them speaking falsehoods. For verily the father
of men and of gods brought thee to birth where men were
far away, and in secret from white-armed Hera. A certain
spot there is called Nysa, a lofty mountain covered with
1 Not the Attic deme Icaria. 2 Homeric Hymns, xxxiv.
3 A promontory on the Aegean island of Icaria, or Nicaria.
1 64 APPENDIX III
blossoming forests, in the uttermost parts of Phoenicia it
lies close to the streams of Aegyptus." l
Two things are here attested, for only one of which
his second birth we are prepared by the ordinarily
accepted accounts of Dionysus. For the birth of Dionysus
in the far East nothing in the Icarian legend, and little in
the Theban legend, save the importance of Cadmus of
Sidon, 2 and certain Thraco- Phrygian features of the tale,
have prepared us. Moreover, the second birth of Dionysus
as it stands in the purely Grecian legends is not only a
most mysterious but a seemingly grotesque episode. The
idea of taking this episode out of the more or less purely
Greek story of the god, and of connecting it with his fabled
birth in the far East, is certainly suggested by the Homeric
fragment above quoted, but it had never occurred to me
until I received some very valuable information in answer
to a request which I addressed to my friend Mr. Clinton
Dawkins. I had asked him to make inquiry about the
habitat of the cinnamon tree, wishing, if possible, to deter
mine by that means what sort of place Nysa, Dionysus
birth-place, was thought to be, when it was identified by
Herodotus with a place where the cinnamon grew. I
wished to know whether cinnamon trees grew in dark low-
lying meadow-lands or on rugged mountain sides. The
information so kindly provided by my friend came from no
less eminent and learned a source than Sir George Bird-
wood, K.C.I.E. With his kind permission I reproduce it
here, since it gave the right clue and has helped me towards
a very fair solution of the difficulties concerned.
"Herodotus (iii. in) says Some relate that it
[/avi/a/Mo/Aov] comes from the country in which Dionysus
was brought up ; and (iii. 97) The Aethiopians border
ing upon Egypt . . . and who dwelt about the sacred city
of Nysa, have festivals in honour of Dionysus ; and again
1 This fragment was found in the same Moscow MS. where the Hymn
to Demeter first came to light. It is also known through Diodorus.
2 Herodotus, ii. 48 and 49.
SECOND BIRTH OF DIONYSUS 165
(ii. 146) he says But Dionysus was no sooner born than
he was sewn up in the thigh of Zeus, and carried off to
Nysa, above Egypt, in Aethiopia. Now there are several
Nysas. Herodotus meant Nysa in Aethiopia, that is the
Troglodytic country beyond the Soudan ; for the Soumali
country is the cinnamon country. On the other hand the
story of Dionysus, the Assyrian stranger/ is, inter alia, a
myth of the development of Phoenician commerce, of which
wine was everywhere throughout the Eastern Mediterranean
(Levant) the staple ; and the Greek myths associating the
wine god with Mount Meroe l in Aethiopia probably arose
from the fact that in the original Phoenician myth he was
not a child of the womb but of the thigh (/xr/po s). That
is to say, these myths probably arose at the time when
kinship among men had ceased to be traced through their
mothers and had already begun to be traced through their
fathers. Similarly the association of the wine god with
Nysa above Egypt was presumably due to there having
been a Nysa near Meroe, and to his Greek name being
Atdwcros ; this Greek form of his name being probably a
folk corruption of his Phoenician name, which would almost
certainly end in nisi man.
" Of course the cult of the vine and the manufacture of
wine did not arise in Aethiopia but on the slopes of the
Indo-Caucasus, and hence Mount Meroe [Meru] and the
Indo-Caucasian Nysa have been identified as the seats of
the education of the young Aiovwos."
It is evident most abundantly from the Homeric Hymn
and from Herodotus that the notion of Dionysus second
birth was often connected with thigh mountain, Mount Meroe&gt;
and it is equally plain that this connection might involve
rejecting more or less consciously according as the matter
was more or less reasoned out the current reports of his
birth at Thebes, or Naxos, or elsewhere in Greece, or Thrace,
1 Cf. Eustathius (fol. p. 310, 1. 6) on Iliad ii. 637 : 8pos de TL
M7?p6s K\r)dr), kiovvay ava.Keifj.evov, 80ev MT/por/xi^rjs /j./u.udei&gt;Tai,
o
1 66 APPENDIX III
or Phrygia. Perhaps the whole story identifying Nysa
that elusive place, which never stays quite where you put it,
but has a trick of moving far East if you seek it in Greece,
and of lurking in Thrace if you seek it in Egypt or Arabia
with Mount Meroe and the far East may have been called
into being by the epithet of Dionysus ^porpa^r^, nursling
of the thigh, which goes hand in hand with that other one
ipa&lt;f)ia&gt;TT]&lt;;, sewed in with needles. Perhaps some mute
inglorious Euhemerus could settle the difficulty quite com
fortably by saying that the epithet should be translated
nursling of Mount Meroe, and then he could say that the
other epithet was a mistake produced by a stupid tale
regarding the thigh of Zeus. This is, however, a too con
venient way of meeting the difficulty, nor is that adopted
by Euripides in the Bacchanals in the least more satisfactory,
although it was made with a certain Jesuitical sincerity, and
in its day probably satisfied many religious minds in difficulty
about the patent incongruity of the tale. For when Euri
pides wrote the Bacchanals the best intellects of the time,
and he was among them, still clung to a belief in the efficacy
of a subtle analysis of words. 1
Tiresias, a holy man, utters the apology, explanation, or
if you chose to call it so the sophism 2 by which Euripides
1 Cf. Mr. Tyrrell s admirable note (p. xxx. of the Introduction to his
Bacchae] : "The reason of this etymologising " he speaks of that at v. 520
of the play " is to be found, as Schwalbe well observes, in the deep con
viction with which Greek antiquity was imbued, that between the word and
the thing denoted by it there was some secret bond or hidden affinity."
2 For an equally curious sophism which Sophocles puts into the mouth
of Antigone, see his Antigone, 904-915. Both of these passages are
alien to modern taste, and are prompted by the rhetorical training enjoyed
by Sophocles and by Euripides. Goethe, Conversation with Eckermann of
28th March 1827, says he would give a great deal if a " tiichtiger
Philologe" would prove that the passage from the Antigone was spuri
ous. The chief reason why this desire of his has never (pace Jacob) been
gratified is found in Aristotle s citation of lines 911 and 912, and in
Herodotus, who has put the same rhetorical commonplaces into an
episode of Persian history (iii. 119). Since writing the above, I have read
Professor Jebb s Appendix, where he rejects lines 904-920 as interpolated
by lophon or as due to the actors. I am not, however, inclined to take
this view.
SECOND BIRTH OF DIONYSUS 167
shames the blasphemies of Pentheus and other scoffers at
the second birth of Dionysus. 1
Him dost thou scorn, and mock to hear the tale,
How in Zeus thigh he was sewn up. Give ear
And learn of me that this is as it should be.
When Zeus from flames and lightnings plucked him out,
And bore Olympus-ward a god unborn,
Then Hera sought to fling him down from Heaven,
Zeus foiled her plot with counter-plots divine.
1 Bacch. 286-297. Dindorf rejects these lines because of their " dictio
inepta confusa omninoque non Euripidea," which amounts to saying, Euri
pides did not write them because they are not by Euripides. This seems to be
Wecklein s view. Professor Tyrrell makes out a better case : "It seems
hardly too much to say that vv. 286-297 must be interpolated, because
they explain away a story taken as literally true by the chorus, vv. 520-
530, and also in the second strophe of their entrance song." Theirs,
he maintains, was the orthodox version opposed by Euripides to the sceptical
one given by Pentheus. It can hardly be maintained, therefore, that Euri
pides would have assigned to Tiresias (who, as well as the chorus, is all
along the exponent of the views of the believers) a theory explaining away
the myth in which the chorus express their belief." Here Professor Tyrrell
seems to me to apply essentially modern standards of faith and orthodoxy to
the side of Greek religion which is most absolutely turned away from them.
To me, and I suppose to many, such a divergence is far from inconceivable
between Tiresias and the chorus, both of them equally authoritative, toth
of them equally orthodox, if such an alien word may be used where it has no
real application. It would be indeed marvellous if the god of transforma
tions, illusions, and contradictions did not often inspire his votaries to
contradict each other. No one phase of the elusive manifestations of
Dionysus, and no one s account of any feature in his story, must be treated
as final. It must, furthermore, be remembered that these offending verses
can be taken as a very clever answering of the fool according to his folly,
an attempt to mediate between the blasphemous scepticism of Pentheus
and a story which he was incapable of accepting as the true believers did.
Regarded in this light the sophism of Tiresias is a Jesuitical concession
made for the salvation of Pentheus soul as a last and desperate move.
Cadmus follows with the last appeal of all, which is characterised by the
same spirit. He allows that Dionysus is a man. These concessions form
part of the plan which shows in Pentheus the self-deluded and self-devoted
victim of wanton wickedness. No one can ever convince every one that
this passage is spurious," says Professor J ebb of Ant. 904-915. Change
spurious to genuine, and the remark applies to Bacch. 286-297. Every one
can, however, be convinced that both passages, if spurious, were the
earliest of interpolations. Thus, in any case, Bacch. 286-297 retains its
religious significance.
168 APPENDIX III
A piece l torn off from earth s encircling ether
He framed to be a pledge of peace 2 with Hera,
With Dionysus semblance cheating her.
But men report that for a time the god
Grew in Zeus loin, 3 contriving all the tale,
Exchanging terms because a changeling pledge
To Goddess Hera was conveyed 4 by Zeus.
The temper in which all these difficulties, so far as it may
be said that they are still difficulties, in the legend of Dionysus
are now met is a very different one from that in which Euri
pides wrote the above. As for the Nysa placed in the far East,
and Dionysus eastern birth, that goes to prove the probable
infusion of a strong Phoenician, Egyptian, or Arabian strain
into the habit of Dionysus as known among the Aegean
islands in early days. Add to this the apparently Phoeni
cian character and derivation of his name, and the whole
setting of the beautiful Homeric Hymn wherein we read
how sea-robbers tried to carry off the god, and how they
were punished for it. Then the outlines for understanding
Dionysus as "the Assyrian Stranger," and for interpreting
certain touches in his story as " a myth of the develop
ment of Phoenician commerce," are complete.
The mystery of his second birth remains to be cleared
up. In the fragment of a Homeric Hymn quoted at the
outset it is noticeable that the writer rejects all maternity
in the case of Dionysus, puts poor Semele entirely out of
court, and maintains that Zeus only, and Zeus alone,
brought the babe to birth. Backofen, 5 in his Mutterrecht,
first had a glimpse of the fact that here was a Greek parallel
to the more primitively grotesque assertion made by impli
cation in the curious practice known as the couvade^ that a
child s father is both parents in one, and that he is most
2 Literally a hostage (ofj.rjpov), and this is part of the play upon
and ^pos. 3 /u,77p6s. 4 w^pevtre.
5 See F. A. Voigt on " Dionysus " in Roscher s AusfuhrUches Lexicon,
p. 1046.
SECOND BIRTH OF DIONYSUS 169
particularly and especially its mother. Curiously enough
not Dionysus only, who proves it in his own person, but also
Apollo, here again his ally, maintains this strange doctrine.
Aeschylus, with a deep insight into the mysterious background
of his own faith, makes Apollo say, in the Eumenides, OVK
ICTTI fJMJTrjp . . . To/&lt;eu?, . . . TtKTet 8 o 6 pwcT KM . The great
principle exemplified in the second birth of Dionysus is a
triumphant justification for Orestes, the slayer of Clytem-
nestra, and the same intense belief that the mother has no
relation to her child, which is all its father s, leads certain
savages to eat children born to their own wives of fathers
who are slaves captured in war. 1 In fact, the story of
Orestes represents a more primitive and unflinching asser
tion of the nullity of the mother s motherhood and the
reality of the father s than does that of the second birth of
Dionysus. In this last common sense has asserted itself,
and the child is partially matured in Semele s womb. 2 Then
when she has been destroyed before the full period for
Dionysus birth has come, the half-formed babe, ^/uTeAcorov,
as Nonnus calls him, is transferred to the thigh of Zeus.
And now, since, the testimony of cannibal customs has
been referred to, it is high time to put the whole question at
issue in the hands of the anthropologists, who are alone com
petent. Fortunately Dr. Tylor has dealt with the matter in
one of his most recent papers. 3 Indeed this very point, i.e.
the place and the function, in the early stratification of
family customs, to be assigned to the violent assertion that
a child s father is his all, and his mother has no part in
him, is taken by Dr. Tylor as his especial theme. Out of
scattered materials strewn like glacial boulders upon the
1 For the fact and a most instructive account of the couvade, see Dr.
Tylor s Early History of Mankind, vol. i. pp. 287-297.
2 A further proof of the reassertion of the mother s natural rights which
plays its part in shaping this myth is found in the beautiful affection of
Dionysus for his mother Semele. This lovely trait is omnipresent in his
story. Mr. Pater has been particularly happy in his account of it.
3 "On a Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions
applied to Laws of Marriage and Descent. " Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, February 1889.
1 70 APPENDIX III
path of civilisation he builds up a wonderfully well-founded
and solidly based structure of scientific demonstration. This
is in fact the topic which he has chosen for a treatment so
strict in method that he may well hope that its elucidation
shall " overcome a certain not unkindly hesitancy on the
part of men engaged in the precise operations of mathe
matics, physics, chemistry, biology, to admit that the
problems of anthropology are amenable to scientific treat
ment."
A more precise description of the " quaint custom "
called the couvade is now desirable, since it is here contended
that the same explanation will account for that and for
Apollo s vindication of Orestes as guiltless though he had
slain his mother, together with the episode of Dionysus
second and only real birth from the thigh of Zeus his
father. In the couvade, to quote from Dr. Tylor, 1 "the
father, on the birth of his child, makes a ceremonial pre
tence of being the mother, being nursed and taken care of,
and performing other rites such as fasting and abstaining
from certain kinds of food or occupation, lest the new-born
should suffer thereby. This custom is .known in the four
quarters of the globe. How sincerely it is still accepted
appears in a story of Mr. Im Thurm, who on a forest
journey in British Guiana noticed that one of his Indians
refused to help to haul the canoes, and on inquiry found
that the man s objection was that a child must have been
born to him at home about this time, and he must not
exert himself so as to hurt the infant. In the Mediterranean
district it is not only mentioned by ancient writers, but in
Spain and France, in or near the Basque country, it went
on into modern times ; Zamacola in 1 8 1 8 mentions, as
but a little time ago, that the mother used to get up and
the father take the child to bed. Knowing the tenacity of
these customs, I should not be surprised if traces of couvade
might be found in that district still."
The place of this custom in the early history of man-
1 P. 254 in the journal above quoted.
SECOND BIRTH OF DIONYSUS 171
kind hangs together with the more or less well-established
fact that there were three stages of successive develop
ment in family and tribe organisation. In the first
and earliest of these, sometimes called the matriarchal
stage, descent and inheritance had only to do with the
mother. 1 Here then was the absolute contradiction of
Apollo s dictum in the Eumenides of Aeschylus. Here the
child is as solely and exclusively his mother s as he after
wards was maintained to be solely his father s. Between
these two strata there was an intermediate stage wherein
both customs struggled for predominance. 2 Now the most
startling confirmation of this order for the development of
early customs is given by Dr. Tylor s discovery which he
makes doubly impressive by a sort of geological diagram
that the couvade is unknown in the lower or matriarchal
stratum, begins after the middle of the transitional stratum,
and spends itself early in the upper or patriarchal stratum.
Thus the couvade was a visible symbol, a practice by the
adoption of which the father s authority was finally and
definitely asserted. As soon as this victory was won the
custom by which it gained the day became a mere curiosity,
a survival.
The curious thing is that the Greek power to trans
mute all things and to beautify whatever came into the
Greek consciousness should have conquered even the
stubborn material afforded by this graceless struggle for
mastery within the primitive human family, and should
have associated its dimmed and mysterious record with
those masterpieces of the high poetic genius of man, the
Oresteia of Aeschylus, and the Bacchanals of Euripides.
1 See in the seventh annual report of the trustees of the Peabody Museum,
Cambridge, Mass. (1884), Mr. Lucien Carr s able paper on "The Social
and Political Position of Woman among the Huron-Iroquois Tribes."
These tribes and many of those of the Pueblos in Arizona are still at the
matriarchal stage.
2 It is perhaps fanciful to suggest that the rival pretensions of Clytem-
nestra and Agamemnon to dispose of Iphigenia are a record of this middle
stage.
172 APPENDIX III
Indeed I cannot more suitably bring to an end these notes
upon a survival in Greek tragedies themselves of primeval
customs than by referring to a thoughtful though a brief
account recently given 1 of the manner in which the Greeks
performed their tragedies as a similar survival I mean their
use of masks in acting. "No one of the early tragedians . . .
did in fact invent masks, but . . . these existed as survivals
of the paraphernalia of the Greek rites from remote and
uncivilised times. . . . Indeed the use of masks is wide
spread among uncivilised peoples ; it begins apparently with
a dim notion of terrifying or deceiving demons, and soon
becomes a formula of worship. It was from this state that
the custom appears to have entered the Greek drama. . . .
While the mask is common among nearly all savage races,
we may find it surviving in the dramatic performances of
the Chinese and Japanese." 2 Interesting though the
Chinese and Japanese drama is, and not devoid of
the genuine power that belongs to an art which has
its definite traditions, the difference between its appoint
ments not to speak of essentials and those of the
Greek stage is very great, and on the score of beauty
of course is all in favour of the Greeks. Starting
apparently from the same or practically the same barbaric
ritual which is the background of Chinese and Japanese
theatrical performances, the Greeks were guided to beauty
by an instinct which was all their own, and which has made
them the sponsors of all that is best in dramatic literature.
As Mr. Perry has admirably said, behind the perfected
Greek drama "was a past that had triumphed successfully
over the barbarism which left its rites, so to speak, as
the raw .material to be worked by art and enthusiasm into a
thousand charming forms. The savage survivals were, like
the physical geography of the land, tamed, smoothed,
cultivated, made inhabitable, not destroyed." 3 In the realm
1 A History of Greek Literature, by T. S. Perry : New York, Henry
Holt and Co., 1890.
2 Ibid. pp. 229, 230. 3 Ibid. p. 224.
SECOND BIRTH OF DIONYSUS 173
of the drama, as in all other regions of literature and art
which the Greeks knew, they and they alone possessed the
art and the enthusiasm which could deal with stubborn
and primitive materials the only ones at hand. Accord
ingly each newly -discovered trace in Hellenic work of
prehistoric man and his ugly ways is but a new occasion for
marvelling at the transcendent genius of Hellas.
THE GODS AT ELEUSIS
IN the previous chapter it has been assumed, according
to abundant testimony, 1 that Dionysus in some shape or
other very early associated himself at Eleusis with the
1 The presence, as an object of early Eleusinian worship, of a mystical
da.ifj.wv is denied by none. But because there is no mention of Dionysus-
lacchos in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, and because the Zagreus
legend, which finally summed up the nature of the specifically Eleusinian
Dionysus, emanated from Onomacritus and the new Orphic sect at Athens,
some maintain that Dionysus was an utter stranger to the Eleusinian cult
until the days of Pisistratus. This interpretation of the facts, which are
unfortunately too few to speak very clearly for themselves, fails to cor
relate with the mystical 5a.ifj.wv of early Eleusis, the Zagreus - Dionysus
who, in the later Mysteries under the surname of lacchos, yearly visited
Demeter and Persephone, and who was variously represented as a brother
and a son of Persephone. The traditional connection between Thrace
and the mythical Eumolpus, whose very name has a touch of the music
of Apollo and Dionysus in it, and the theory among late Greeks that
Eumolpus had to do with the worship of lacchos at Eleusis, lead towards
the conclusion that, after all, the early mystical 8a.ifj.wv is a proto-Thracian
Dionysus under some sort of Eleusinian disguise the old netherworld
god of Thrace, brought by that early influence from the north, represented
by the name Eumolpus to complete the group of divinities worshipped
at Eleusis. The characteristically Eleusinian epithets of Pluto and
Eubouleus suit well this primitive divinity when once he is far from
Thrace and under the softening influences of Demeter. As for the absence
of any mention of Dionysus-Iacchos in the Hymn, to Demeter, it must be
remembered that neither is the great Eleusinian hero Triptolemus there
mentioned, except among others represented as of equal importance with
him in the establishment of the Eleusinian rites. In spite of this circum-
v THE COMING OF DIONYSUS TO ELEUSIS 175
two goddesses of the Mysteries. So far as chronology
applies, it is evident that this first of his comings to
Eleusis was thought of as having taken place not long after
the day of Demeter s arrival at Eleusis and of Dionysus
visit to Icarius. We may safely take it for granted, how
ever, that his status in those early days was far inferior to
that to which he subsequently attained through the reforms
and innovations made first by Epimenides and Solon, 1 and
then by Pisistratus and Onomacritus, whereby he was enabled
to participate in Eleusinian observances from the vantage-
ground of an independently organised Athenian ritual in his
honour. After Epimenides had suitably organised the Lesser
Mysteries at the Athenian Eleusinion, the god could in due
time become the leader of the mystae in their yearly procession
to Eleusis, and under the name of lacchos, which perhaps
had not attached to him in his early days at Eleusis, when
he was merely a TrdpeSpos an associate divinity, was there
welcomed as the coequal of the two great goddesses.
In a sense therefore the coming of Dionysus, as an
independently recognised divinity, to take his share
in the worship of those who thronged to the Greater
Mysteries, was prepared by Epimenides and brought to
pass by Pisistratus and Onomacritus ; and the first move
stance testimony from other sources assigns a prominent place to Trip-
tolemus in the local cult. Indeed we may consider the presence of a
representative of Dionysus in the early legend a thing assured, since there
was anciently more than one version of the story of the Hymn to Demeter
(see Pausanias, I. xxxviii. 3, where Pamphos is followed as to the number
and names of the daughters of Celeus), and since the Demophoon incident,
the only point where Dionysus-Iacchos-Triptolemus could be concerned,
plainly does not hang together with its surroundings. See note i, p. 194.
1 I thus couple Solon with Epimenides, because Plutarch (as quoted
note i, p. 123) says that the latter prepared the way for Solon s
legislation, and also because one of Solon s laws distinctly applied to
the concerns of the mysteries set in order by Epimenides. Andocid. de
My sterns, 110-112.
1 76 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
was brought about from Athens. But had not earlier
influences already made some place for the new-comer at
Eleusis, the great Eleusinian alliance of three coequal
divinities would not so easily have come to pass. It is
an undoubted fact that the popular legends and unauthor
ised observances at Eleusis began to recognise the Thracian
god at some earlier time while he still bore plain marks of
being king of the underworld. This view is in agreement
with the traditions of Eumolpus and the Eumolpidae, while
any other makes it difficult to understand why Dionysus
attached himself in just the way he did l to a group of gods
where Hades played a part not unimportant, though to us
obscure. The coming of Dionysus to Eleusis evidently
enhanced the importance of Hades, and took away some
thing 2 from Demeter s overpowering predominance. But
by this limitation she apparently gained in effectiveness
what she lost in exclusiveness.
1 See F. A. Voigt (art. " Dionysus " in Roscher s Lexicon.}, where various
epithets of Hades are shown to belong to Dionysus, particularly that of
E#/3ovXevs. The name Eubouleus is especially connected with the Hades
legend at Eleusis, both in the Athenian and the Argive tale. There was
undoubtedly a more or less definite distinction drawn, in the Eleusinian
and cognate worships, between two male divinities worshipped in con
junction with Persephone, one of which may have been more especially
identified with Dionysus than the other ; but it is more than likely that
they represented the two types of Dionysus-Dendrites and Dionysus-Hades.
The chief authority for this distinction is hardly earlier than the fourth
century B.C. It is an inscription found on a tablet in a tomb near the
ancient Sybaris. The deceased, one of the Kadapoi, i.e. initiate, writes:
"Epxo/J-ai eK Kadapuv, Kadapa xQoviwv j3a&lt;ri\eia EwX-^s, Ei^ouXetfs re ...
See Pausanias, I. xiv. 1-4, and Miss Harrison (Mythology and Monuments
of Athens, pp. 95-101). See also Chr. Scherer (art. " Hades " in Roscher,
pp. 1783 and ff.), where the euphemistic epithets of the god are discussed,
and the softening of the sterner aspects of Hades through contact with the
cult of Persephone and Demeter is noted.
2 She lost a touch of vindictiveness, which in the legend at Hermione
led her to burn Colontas in his house (Pausanias, II. xxxv. 4), and a
gloom which gave her the surname Erinys at Thelpusa (Pausanias, VIII.
xxv. 4).
v THE ALL-WELCOMING DEMETER 177
Like the worship of Apollo at Delphi, that of Eleusinian
Demeter did, however, owe its increasing importance to a
hospitality, which welcomed new-coming divinities with no
thought of curtailing their traditionary powers. Dionysus
came to Eleusis and took his place there by the side of
Hades, 1 so that Heraclitus in one of his dark words declares
this identification to be a proof that life and death are one. 2
The original Thracian conception of Dionysus, based as it
was upon the belief that death was life, was in this manner
reasserted.
Besides the bond of kingship in the netherworld, Hades
and Dionysus were affiliated by their relation to the treasures
concealed in the bowels of earth. Control over these came
by right so ancient piety argued to the lord of the world
below. Hence Hades and Pluto, 3 the god of riches, were
1 See Voigt (art. " Dionysus" in Roscher s Lexicon, p. 1047) on Diony
sus bringing of Semele from Hades to Olympus, which he compares to the
Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Certainly Pindar s tone (in the third
Pythian) about Semele justifies some such parallel. Enthusiastic wor
shippers of Dionysus attributed to him power over the life to come, and wel
comed his use of it to lead Semele into the assemblage of gods on Olympus.
2 Heraclitus, quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Protreptica, p. 30 :
wurds 5 Ai 5r?s KO.I &ibvv&lt;ros br($ fiaivovrai Kail \rjvdfovcrii . (Cf. Ritter
and Preller, Hist. Phil. I. 39 a, who say, after quoting, as of Heraclitus,
the celebrated $dos Zrjvl cn&lt;6Tos At Sfl, 0dos Aidy o-/c6ros Tiyvi &lt;/&gt;otTg
/cat /j.TaKi.v^Tat Kelva &df Kal rdSe Ket&lt;re, Traffyv wprjv dLaTrptjff&lt;r6fjt.va Keivd
re TO, ruvSe, raSe 5 ct5 rd Keivuv, " At STjy, quern eundem deum esse cum
Libero Patre dicebat [scil. Heraclitus], significat vim humidam tenebricosam
telluris, lupiter lucidam et ignitam coeli.") See also Scherer (as above) on
a relief found at Locri.
3 It might be hazarded as a conjecture that the coming of Dionysus to
Eleusis brought with it for Hades the surname Pluto. Certainly the
epithet HXovruv first appears for Hades in the Attic poets of the fifth
century. Aeschylus, Prom. 806 ; Soph. Antig. 1200 ; Euripid. Alcestis,
360, Here. Fur. 808 ; Aristoph. Plut. 727. See also at the beginning
of the eighth book of Plato s Laws a passage where Pluto is named alone
for all the Chthonian gods. Preller, commenting on this fact, attributes
the epithet Pluto to the Eleusinian worship. Chr. Scherer (art. Hades " in
Roscher, p. 1786) inclines to agree with Preller as to the epithet Plouto,
but objects that the other euphemistic names must have come from tradi-
N
i;8 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
one, and hence Dionysus, to the extent that he was originally
a netherworld god, was in his own person called Father of
Gold, and to him were dedicated the gold-bearing floods of
Phrygian Pactolus. Demeter, Persephone, Aidoneus-Pluto,
lacchos-Dionysus, and Rhea-Cybele these, the five divini
ties of Eleusinian worship, become three before the eyes,
as it were, of their worshippers. lacchos-Dionysus and
Aidoneus-Pluto mysteriously melt into one, while Rhea-
Cybele and Demeter are similarly fused. This would leave
just three one Demeter-Rhea-Cybele gave the feminine
element. The second, Hades-Iacchos-Dionysus, represents
the male element, and finally the third is Persephone. It
has been abundantly shown how Demeter and Persephone
were regarded as one, being so filled with mutual love that
all barriers between them melted away. A similar identifica
tion of Dionysus and Persephone is shadowed forth by
legends of their marriage. Hence what we may call the
first of the Eleusinian mysteries, 1 since it deals with the
hidden nature of all the gods at Eleusis, is not without a
modern parallel. It presented itself to the pious mind in
terms and with difficulties, most of which recur in one
statement or another of the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
Eight names, four of goddesses and four of gods, came
finally to stand for two persons in whom was presented one
great fact the course of nature. Demeter was Persephone ;
both and each were Rhea, who was Cybele. Aidoneus
tions preserved among the people. Suppose that Dionysus brought this
golden contribution, and that the other mild epithet of Eubouleus came
from Greek, and especially Eleusinian, tradition, then the softening influ
ence which gathered these kindly qualities around forbidding Hades
belongs still to Eleusis.
1 I am intentionally using the word Mystery in the modern sense,
because it is noticeable that a religious conception very nearly approaching
it is characteristic of the Orphic writings, and was familiar to Euripides.
v XENOPHANES AND HERACLITUS 179
was Pluto; while both and each were Dionysus, who was
lacchos, and also, in some sense, Triptolemus.
The two divine persons around whom these abundant
names and attributes gathered at Eleusis were in the highest
sense not two but one. They were one as concave and
convex are one ; they represented the active and the pas
sive aspects of the great and universal all. Nor is it fanci
ful to add that they represented two typically Greek ways l
of understanding the world and all that is therein ; the one
way was that of Demeter and Xenophanes, the other way
was that of Heraclitus and Dionysus.
Dionysus all flash, all heat, all motion flowing and grow
ing, living and dying, dancing and flying, 2 was a fit incarna
tion of the philosophy of those whom Plato laughingly calls
the " Streamers," men who with Heraclitus, the dark philo
sopher, talked of the course of nature as being that of a
swift and shifting stream or a fitfully burning conflagration.
1 For a somewhat fuller account of these, see sections 3-7 of my Intro
duction based upon Dr. Crons s to Plato s Apology : Ginn and Heath,
1886.
2 See Pausanias, III. xix. 6, for Dionysus worshipped at Amyclae as
^Xa, or winged, and cf. E. Thraemer (art. " D. in der Kunst," Roscher,
p. 1152). Dr. Braun {Kunstvorstellungen des gefliigelten Dionysos, Munich,
1839) first called especial attention to this. Speaking of the winged
Dionysus at Amyclae, Pausanias makes a somewhat forcible-feeble remark,
to the effect that the god of wine may well have wings, since under wine s
influence men flutter, and are uplifted as by wings. There is a merry French
song in praise of Dionysus, " Vive Denis notre bon pere ! " is the gist of it ;
but the last verse gives to Dionysus Liber both wings and song, as follows :
Ce Liber pere des repas
Qu on adore au siecle ou nous sommes,
En tre"passant ne mourut pas
Ainsi qu on voit mourir les hommes ;
Un assoupissement vineux
Poussa son esprit lumineux
Dans un doux repos de vingt heures,
Apres quoi ce dieu s envola
Dans les eternelles demeures
Chantant ut r6 mi fa sol la."
i8o THE GODS AT RLE US IS v
Certainly the poetic genius of man never conceived any
personality better suited than that of Dionysus to represent
the ever-moving stream, the ever-living and ever-dying fire
of Heraclitus. Those minds whom this doctrine confused
and alarmed could take the very different view of nature
and divinity presented by Xenophanes ; and Demeter s
personality gives most admirably the aspect of divinity
which they would chiefly worship. Demeter is peace
bought with the price of sorrow, love mingled with sad
ness ; hers is a constant soul, unswerving and unselfish in
her boundless love for sweet Persephone. Let Demeter
then stand for the new aspect of divinity proclaimed and
justified by Xenophanes.
Tired of the tales that the charming Homer told, shocked
and pained at the wickedness of gods who were human at
heart and only superficially divine magnified men freed from
death and age but not from sin Xenophanes declared that
god was one, even so Demeter and Persephone were one ; he
said that god was infinite, even so was the love and long
ing of Demeter for Persephone. Indeed it has been often
remarked that a new spirit came into Greek religion and life
with the new worship of non-Homeric divinities at Eleusis ;
and this new spirit was just what Xenophanes longed for.
In the unknown, or at most half- known, spirit of the
Eleusinian mysteries, one virtue reigned with living power,
which some think has in our days vanished from all
Christendom. This virtue is much lauded by the pious
Plutarch ; it is the virtue of silence. Indeed all the rites
of Eleusis would have been in vain if it were possible to
describe minutely the Eleusinian ritual after the confident
fashion of the author of The Divine Legation of Moses. 1
1 Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester.
v THE HOLY SILENCE OF E LEU SIS 181
Worshippers were bound by every fear, and lured by
every hope, touching their fate after death 1 to reveal no
word of what was said, and to withhold the least hint of
what was done in the Eleusinian Holy of Holies. What is
1 The scholiast on line 158 of the Frogs of Aristophanes says : "The
opinion prevailed at Athens that whoever had been taught the Mysteries
would, when he came to die, be deemed worthy of divine glory. Hence
all were eager for initiation." This would sometimes take place when a
man was near his death. See Aristoph. Peace, v. 374 f. , where Try-
gaeus, sure of approaching death, tries to borrow three drachmas to buy a
bit of a porker (for an offering to the gods below), and says, " You know
I ve got to be initiated or ere I die." A curious ray of light is thrown upon
the whole question of the mysteries, and the comfort which they gave by
assuring to the initiated especial privileges in the life beyond, by four
Orphic fragments found in Southern Italy (three at Sybaris and one at
Petelia). The date of the tombs wherein they were found on thin plates
of gold is the third century B.C. ; but Comparetti, in his account of them
(Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. iii. p. 112), says the Orphic fragments go
back to the time of Euripides, and he refers to the well-known passage in
Plato s Republic about the Orpheotelestae (ii. 364 B). In the preceding
chapter I have spoken of the first Orphic doctrines promulgated by Ono-
macritus at Athens ; Mr. Cecil Smith, "Orphic Myths on Attic Vases"
(Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. xi. p. 346), gives the following summary
of doctrine (derived from the three inscriptions in question) from later Orphic
poems, and from a vase-painting of great and almost unique interest that
goes back to a date earlier than 480 B.C. :
In the cosmogony of the Orphic teaching there are two great cosmic
elements Zeus, the omnipotent all in all, and his daughter Kore, who
combines in her personality the characteristic features of Persephone,
Artemis, and Hekate ; from the union of Zeus in serpent form with Kore,
Zagreus is born, and to him, essentially in his character of x^ojuos, the
kingdom is given of this world. Zagreus is the allegory of the life and
death and resurrection of Nature. In the generally accepted version, he
is brought up as the Zeus-child, and from fear of Hera, is sent on earth to
be warded by the Kouretes. Hera sends the Titans, who surprise Zagreus
at play, tear him in pieces, and eat him all except the heart. Zeus destroys
the Titans with his thunderbolts, and out of their ashes the human race is
born. Since the Titans had swallowed Zagreus, a spark of the divine
element forever permeates the human system. The heart is carried by
Athene to Zeus, who either gives it to Semele in a potion or swallows it
himself, and thus is born another Zagreus, the younger Dionysus, 6 v^os
&i6vv&lt;ros. " For the initiated death is a piece of good luck, and on one of
the Sybaris tablets the departed soul exults, saying to the gods : /cat yap
fyijjv vfj.Q&gt;v ytvos 6\{3oi&gt; etf^ojucu eli/cu. Having atoned for the sin of the
Titans by mystic ceremonies, the initiated claim the heritage of Zagreus,
which is life everlasting. He is in their members, and through his death
their immortality has been won.
182 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
sometimes, with a too ineffable self-complacency, called the
" modern mind," might learn a lesson from the novices at
Eleusis ; and it is perhaps good for us all to ponder over
this ancient recognition of the unutterableness of the un
utterable. This ground of holy reserve, not always respected
to-day, was kept intact both in Greece and at Rome by the
Mysteries.
If silence is the chief lesson and culminating grace 1
derived from Eleusis, it may be asked why there is more to
say ? But even the secret of those Mysteries has been in a
certain fashion laid open, and their noble spirit breathes from
many masterpieces of the Greek genius. Such was the
speaking power of Greek art, that the sculptors and the
poets have almost revealed the secret in the beauty of their
work. Certain statues of Eleusinian divinities bear the
impress of the Mysteries, as do indeed the eyes of many a
saint pictured by Christian art. Even in Botticelli s awkward
and mysterious grace we read this same unnamed and un-
nameable constraint and mystery.
The first and most delicate manifestation of this shows
in the peaceful and enigmatical beauties of Demeter and
Persephone. Give to this constraining power something of
manly force, and it constrains no longer to repose. The
universe whirls onward then in Dionysus wake. The
trees are drawn to follow Orpheus and his Thracian lyre.
With Dionysus all nature floods forward and onward to a
1 For fear of having been misled into a one-sided statement, I give the
following graphic summary of the spirit in which the faithful were invited
to the Mysteries, which I abbreviate from Mannhardt s Demeter essay :
"Come, whosoever is clean of all pollution, and whose soul hath not
consciousness of sin. Come, whosoever hath lived a life of righteousness
and justice. Come, all ye who are pure of hand and of heart, and whose
speech can be understood." Almost every Athenian sought out the
celebration, and from time to time communed with the gods of Eleusis for
the ease of his soul.
v DIONYSUS AN ENHANCEMENT OF DE METER 183
goal, which is neither named nor known, and yet is the first
cause of an irresistible impulse. The intensity of calm
which is sometimes to be seen in Demeter s grief, and
sometimes even gives to her joy a sober hue, allies itself
with one aspect of the annually recurring tragedy of life
decaying, and of growth on earth. Forsaken in her grief
she is the spirit of loneliness, the genius of home-sickness ;
and even in her appeasement she still seems alone. Per
sephone, her joy, is with her truly, but she brings to her
mother that nameless tremor, half of peace and half of
unutterable oppression, which comes to a lingerer musing
in the fields of spring.
The more boisterous joy of Dionysus is this tremor
raised to a higher power, and contains its oppression and
its gladness both intensified. The promise written, half in
sadness, first upon the hesitating face of spring comes to
its uttermost fulfilment in an ecstasy of joy which is near
to downright madness and fraught with death. The
crescendo of growth and vigour drives away and utterly
dispels the outward show of mystery, because the mystery
itself lies hidden. It is the god himself who enters in
and fills his worshippers and all the world with his con
straining power. He is in all things, and he leads all
things on the way of his choice. From flash to flash, from
flame to flame, the scale of bright and fluid being is run
through with the whirl, as it were, of a devouring fire that
darts across fields of yellow grain. Demeter is no longer
there, nor yet are we who have been swept along by Diony
sus in his fluid train. Yet this is not the last word of the
mysterious power that shapes the varying course of nature.
The learned and truly pious Strabo somewhere says that it
was but right for the Eleusinian worshippers to guard most
1 84 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
jealously a mystical secret. How otherwise could their
ritual have shown forth the nature of the gods at Eleusis ?
Their secret always eluding inquiry was like their godhead
for ever eluding the grasp of our senses, 1 for ever streaming
on beyond reach of our straining eyes. The Streaming
philosopher, Heraclitus, declared solemnly that you could
not twice step into the same river, and Strabo would have
us apply this to divinity, and mark how the same Dionysus
is never met with twice. This may be called, and was
sometimes meant as, a Pantheistic doctrine ; but sometimes
it was of higher import, and Dionysus was thought of as a
spirit moving in all things, whose worshippers must not
attach themselves to any one manifestation of him, but
must worship him in spirit and in truth.
And yet this fast and furious race from shape to shape
was thought of only as a final paroxysm, like the fortissimo
that comes near the end of a musical composition. Then
nature reaches fulness, fruits are shining where lately were
the buds of spring, while the dancing Maenads whirl across
the face of the earth, moving in Bacchic revelry their
gleaming feet, tossing their necks into the dewy air. This
is the Maenads hour of triumphant freedom. Now let
them sing while they may the victorious refrain in Euri-
pidean numbers. "What is the wisdom, what among
mortals the boon of heaven that is fairer than waving the
hand victorious over a fallen foe ? What is glorious, that
is always dear." 2
Dearly bought indeed is this Bacchanalian victory, for
there is a mystery revealed in sadness when the ecstasy
1 Strabo, X. iii. 9 (467) : 77 re Kpfyis 77 IJLVGTLKT] T&V lep&v
rb Oetov, /uu[ji.ov/ji{i r} rty (f&gt;v&lt;ni&gt; avrov (petiyovcrav TJ/J.UV
- Euripides, Bacchanals, 877-881, and 897-901.
v THE PITILESS HUNTSMAN Z ACRE US 185
of joy is past. A frenzied impulse overtakes the revelling
Maenads, and lo ! their nearest and their dearest lies
before them hideously slain. In overpowering their
foeman they have unspeakably harmed their own. The
huntsman from whom they thought to escape was none
other than their own Dionysus, the pitiless huntsman
Zagreus. They thought to be swift and go from him
free when he had really entered in and possessed them
utterly. Winter is at hand, there are no buds, no blossoms,
no fruits, and no joys. The sad awakening comes Diony
sus is dead. Is he not buried within the temple of Apollo
at Delphi ? And now the worshipper is left alone ! And
yet not quite alone, for he has for his comrade in grief
Demeter, the all-welcoming Demeter, in her lonely trial
longing and grieving, seeking and finding not Demeter
whose only comfort is in doing deeds of sweet and unpre
meditated love. 1
Let us now, while we still are under the spell of De-
meter s sorrowing godhead, 2 enter into the holy place at
Eleusis and consider reverently its broken stones and buried
walls. Here is a place consecrated by eight hundred years
of pious usage and spoiled by centuries of neglect. At last
1 The way in which allegiance to the spirit of the Mysteries begins
with Persephone and Demeter, transfers itself for a climax to lacchos, and
then dies down to a calmer loyalty again, chiefly to Demeter and the high
standard of right living associated with her, is best seen in the passage of
the Frogs of Aristophanes summarised at the end of this chapter. See
w. 372-459.
2 This phase of Demeter is characteristic when her divinity stands in
contrast to that of Dionysus. Dionysus also when taken alone has his
sad and subdued aspects. For both these divinities alone were con
ceived of as covering the whole ground more completely but not less
really occupied when they each supplemented the other, and both made
room for Persephone. Demeter as the productive Earth (Eur. Bacch. 274-
276) was conceived of as going through in her own person all the stages
and phases of vegetation, and of the husbandry by which earth was culti
vated. See Lenormant, art. " Cres" in Daremberg and Saglio.
1 86 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
a time for the re-awakening of glorious pagan memories has
come at Eleusis, since the present condition of its site is the
result of much careful excavation.
From Athens to Eleusis is not far, though it is more than
a Sabbath day s journey. In more accurate measurement
the distance to Eleusis is slightly over twelve miles. The
first excavations at Eleusis were made early in this century
by the London Dilettanti Society. 1 From these labours
came a good account of the site and of the two ceremonial
gates or Propylaea both of the latter belonging to the days
of Roman supremacy at Eleusis. Of these first excavations
an account is given in the Unedited Antiquities of Attica^
published in 1817. The Dilettanti Society could not cause
the modern village of Levsina to be removed from the site
most important for excavation, and therefore obtained little
or no knowledge of the Hall of Initiation. This forced
omission, and nearly all others, have been made up for by
Greek excavations which were ended only in 1887. At the
request of the Greek Archaeological Society, Dr. Dorpfeld
made out in 1887 the full ground-plan of all buildings whose
foundations were left on the site when the village houses
had been removed. The plan published in 1888 will never
receive any important modifications, though details may still
be forthcoming ; and I desire to give my warmest thanks to
my friend Dr. Dorpfeld for allowing me to publish it here.
The enthusiasm and ability of Dr. Philios, the commissioner
1 This chapter is so especially concerned with Eleusis rather than with the
approach to it from Athens that Franpois Lenormant s admirable work in
excavation and publication has no great prominence in my presentation of
Eleusinian religious antiquities. His work, however, and his account of
the Sacred Way, demand the fullest recognition, and his Grande Grtce
also contains much invaluable information about Dionysus in Greater
Greece. From his articles in Daremberg and Saglio s Dictionary I have
constantly derived enlightenment.
v DESCRIPTION OF ELEUSIS 187
for years in charge of the Eleusinian excavations, have abund
antly justified the confidence reposed in him by the Greek
Archaeological Society, and earn the gratitude of all students,
who may now see in Dr. Dorpfeld s plan a record of the
results due to Dr. Philios learning, energy, and ability.
Eleusis lies upon and around a group of rocks which
separate the south-eastward breadths of the Thriasian plain
from the smaller Rarian plain, which is north-west of it.
Towards the south and east spreads the beautiful Bay of
Eleusis, and beyond rise the purple heights of Acamas l on
Salamis Salamis looming up as if to shut out all view of the
Gulf of Aegina and distant Cyllene. The best description
of Eleusis is perhaps that given in the Unedited Antiquities
of Attica, as follows :
" The south-eastern extremity of a low rocky hill about
300 yards from the sea was chosen by the Eleusinians for
their citadel their acropolis. The declivity of this hill
facing the south-east being formed into an artificial terrace,
and the rock having been cut away from the front to the
rear, a level area was obtained for the sacred enclosure of
the mystic temple. This magnificent structure, built by
Pericles, stood a bold and prominent feature in a picture
whose background was formed by the walls and towers of
the impending acropolis. In front the villas and gardens
of the Eleusinians complete the picture, spreading them
selves around the foot of the rock and along the borders of
the Bay of Salamis called also the Bay of Eleusis, since
Eleusis is on its northern shore while the sea-girt heights
of Salamis lock it in towards the south. As accessories in
1 For the authority upon which I use this name for the Salaminian
mountains, see Appendix VIII. end, on "The river Bocarus and John
Meursius," after chap. vii. below.
1 88 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
the composition of this grand design, the lofty gates or
Propylaea, with the temple of Artemis Propylaea, were
worthy of admiration."
Such is the picture of ancient Eleusis skilfully drawn
in 1814. In it we see, vaguely indeed but really, some
thing of the later magnificence at Eleusis. This was the
Eleusis of Roman days, for the great Propylaea not to
speak of the upper gateway or Lesser Propylaea of Appius
Claudius Pulcher 1 were built in Roman days and not
visible to the eyes of Ictinus. This was the Eleusis which
came to destruction in the year of our Lord 396 at the
hands of monks who followed in the wake of Alaric
and his Ostrogoths. Eunapius calls these worse than
Ostrogoths "the black -robed crew," and their icono-
clasm, no doubt, merited his most "vinegar epithets"; but
still even these zealots did less harm probably than the
poverty and sloth caused by the intolerable and continuous
oppression weighing heavily upon generations who after
wards lived near and on the site. Various churches and a
whole village got themselves built within the boundaries
of the holy precinct by a process utterly destructive of all
manner of architectural remains, and particularly of the
precious statues left in fragments, but still no doubt left by
those Ostrogothic monks who would hardly have been able
to demolish everything of the kind. Heads, arms, and
1 Cicero to Atticus (vi. i), " Unum etiam velim cogites. Audio Appium
TTpoTrtiXaiov Eleusine facere. Num inepti fuerimus, si nos quoque Academiae
fecerimus? Puto, inquies. Ergo id ipsum scribes ad me. Equidem valde
ipsas Athenas amo. Volo esse aliquod monumentum. Odi falsas in-
scriptiones statuarum alienarum. Sed ut tibi placebit." Very interesting
remains of this ceremonial gate of Appius still lie upon its site. A certain
originality is shown in its composite capitals and in the decorative use of
wheaten ears and the vaguely known instruments of the mysteries upon
its entablatures. For photographs of these remains see Appendix XL i.
43- 44-
THE ONLY CHURCH OF ANTIQUITY 189
beautiful draperies fashioned delicately in marble seemed to
the clumsy and half-barbarised Albanian builders of Levsina
to exist for nothing else than the fire whose burning gave
them lime for building their unsightly huts. After these
devastations no hope could be entertained that any full
knowledge of the temples and statues of the gods at Eleusis
should ever be rescued from its ruins. We are forced in
fact to make many a conjecture before the results of the
most patient and painstaking excavations will yield any clear
notion of that unique structure the Eleusinian Telesterion
or Hall of Initiation. This was called in the description
quoted above the Mystic Temple, but is more accurately
designated by Aristophanes as the " Home that welcomed
the Mystae," Strabo s phrase for it being o ILVGTIKQS cry/cos,
the holy enclosure of the Mystae?- It was in fact not as other
Greek temples were, for, as Strabo directly implies, it was
not the dwelling-place of any god, and contained there
fore no holy image. It is unique because on no other
Greek site has there been found a meeting-house built,
as this one was, for the celebration of a definite ritual.
The Thracian worship of one of the Eleusinian gods,
Dionysus, seems to have required meeting places or houses
of some kind, but there is only the vaguest record of them.
The truth therefore is that the Eleusinian Hall of Initiation
is the only known church of antiquity, if by church we
mean not so much the house of the deity as the meeting
house for worshippers, a place where they may congregate
for worship.
This Hall of Initiation, if we would know it as it stood
1 He plainly distinguishes it from the temple of Demeter. See IX. i.
12 (395) Elr EXewris 7r6\u, h r? rb TTJS ATj/rrjrpos iepbv TT)S JSXevffivtas Kal
6 /iucm/cos o"r)K6s, 6v KareffKevaafv IKTWOS (t^Xov dearpov
190 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
in the days of Athenian greatness and power, must be shorn
of the Roman fagade and the porch of Philo. These must
disappear with the walls that go with the lower or most
northern Propylaea, a ceremonial gate built in the
Emperor Hadrian s day. 1
Suppose, then, Hadrian s grand gate of entrance is
removed ; take away also the outer wall (indicated by salmon
colour on the large map) that this gate pierced. Then you
have thrown open a considerable space between a sacred
building the temple of Artemis Propylaea (Artemis at the
gate) and an older gateway piercing an older outside wall.
This is the gateway, already talked of above, built by Appius
Claudius Pulcher. The report of it moved Cicero to
propose that he and his rich friend Atticus 2 should build
something of the kind for the Academy. Supposing our
selves in Eleusis before Appius Claudius and his workmen,
then in place of his gate we should have found something
of wholly Greek antiquity something to show forth the
earlier history of the shrine and sanctuary. Here anciently
was a strong gate which, with the wall that it pierced,
could be defended against all enemies of the gods and of
Eleusis. 3 Having passed through this gate and hastened to
the Hall of the Initiated, we might, supposing our visit fell
1 It was the irony of fate which afforded money and to spare in
Hadrian s time for completing at Eleusis an imitation of the masterpiece ol
Mnesicles, itself left unfinished for the lack of moneys in the coffers of
imperial Athens.
2 The passage at the end of the first letter in the sixth book of their
correspondence is given above, p. 188, note i. Atticus apparently did not
encourage Cicero, perhaps because he reflected that Cicero would have
contributed more beautiful discourse than hard cash to any joint under
taking of the kind.
3 That there was fortification in the early days cannot be doubted, in
view of recorded attacks. Certain remains of old-time masonry, together
with the fixed position of the Sacred Way, make it practically sure that
here was a fortified gate.
v ELEUSIS FORTIFIED IN EARL Y DA YS 191
after 310 B.C., find an important feature which was not known
to the worshippers in the days of the Peloponnesian war I
mean the porch of Philo, built at the expense of Demetrius
the Phalerean in 310 B.C. Ictinus must have planned either
this porch or something like it, but it certainly was not built
in his day. And finally, if we returned to the site four
centuries or so later, we should discover an enlargement
and remodelling of the Hall as built by Ictinus. The site
as it existed before 310 B.C. was enclosed by a defensible
wall, and approached by a fortified gate on the site of the
ornate and unfortified Propylaea of Appius. The Telesterion
or meeting-house consisted of two narrow rooms, had no
front porch, and was not quite so large as Roman recon
struction subsequently made it.
It is very easy to forget the little or nothing known about
certain small temples and treasure-houses of uncertain date.
These grouped themselves about the great meeting-house
of the Mystae, and like it had the living rock of the Eleusinian
Acropolis as their background. This rock towards the north
exhibits two remarkable cave-like arches in the living stone.
Such was the site before 310 B.C. six hundred years, that
is to say, before the sanctuary was ravaged and destroyed. 1
1 Cf. Strabo, quoted above, p. 189, note i, and Vitruvius, Praef. vii. 16,
17, Schneider. Plutarch (Pericles, xiii.) gives a rather detailed account of
the various architects and builders who apparently carried out the plans of
Ictinus, though the words of Plutarch alone might lead one to think he did
not connect Ictinus with the work, but rather considered its building to have
been, like the Parthenon, under the general supervision of Phidias. He
says that Coroebus began to build it, proceeding so far as to set the
columns up on the foundations, and adding the architrave. Coroebus
died, and Metagenes of the deme Xypeta continued the work, adding the
5idfw/xa (is this to be translated frieze, or has it the meaning of prae-
cinctio, a narrow upper gallery, for access to upper seats, which at Eleusis
would mean a ledge hewn out of the rock, to allow access to the upper story ?)
and the columns of the upper story. Xenocles of Cholargia finished the
faalov, whatever that may here be supposed to mean.
i 9 2 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
Now let us approach the remains as they are. Neglect
the Roman- remains of triumphal arches on your left ; look
for a moment at the site of the temple of Artemis at the
gate ; consider the intense misunderstanding of the Doric
capital that led Hadrian s builders to give such a stiff
and lifeless curve as that shown in huge examples that
cumber the ground on the site of Hadrian s gate of Cere
mony. There is, if only it were worth the looking at, a
monstrous lump of white marble here. It was a huge
medallion tastelessly injected into the gable or pediment of
the Propylaea aforesaid. 1 Some think a mysterious person
figured here a priest, say; but others more prosaically
claim that Hadrian himself somewhat awkwardly presided
over this rule-of-thumb Doric architecture for which he
is responsible. But let us get inside this gate and forget
everything about it save only that it faced north-east.
Following now the Sacred Way which trends to the left and
ascends, we may now pass the remains of the smaller gate
of Appius, which faces due north. To those who think
they can solve the riddles ot all religions by accumulating
facts about the orientation of temples it will be of import
ance to note that the four corners of the great meeting-house
at Eleusis point respectively north, south, east, and west.
Before reaching this northern gate of Appius we are not
yet on the ground of old deemed holy ; but this gate once
passed, we are where the yearly procession from Athens first
felt that its goal was reached. A long journey it was for
those burdened with offerings this twelve miles, the last
nine of which were without shade, if one may rashly suppose
the distribution of trees always to have been what it is to-day.
i See for the photograph of it published by the Hellenic Society,
Appendix XI. i. 43.
v THE PRESENT CONDITION OF ELEUSIS 193
Here we are at last within the sanctuary rdlv Oeaiv, of
the goddesses twain. Before looking about us within, let
it be stated, for the benefit of geometers, that this sacred
ground enclosed by walls and rock is in shape an irregular
pentagon. Of the five enclosing sides, the longest is the
line of overhanging rock the Acropolis. At the northern
end of this rock wall, which runs from west to north, are
the two caves. Just north of the northernmost of the two
caves this longest side meets the shortest side a wall run
ning north-eastward from the Acropolis rock to the gate
way just entered. Of the three remaining sides one is a wall
parallel to the Acropolis rock, and the other two, also walls,
connect this parallel side respectively with the gate of Appius
and the western end of the Acropolis side. Such are the
boundaries, through the ruins of which we suppose ourselves
to have walked.
And now we may well begin with a curious examination
of the ground we tread, over which so many pious feet have
passed. Beyond the lesser or Appian gateway traces appear
of the Holy or Processional Way, but under the disappointing
guise of a Roman pavement slabs of stone made fast with
mortar upon the native rock. In Grecian days the bare rock
was probably not improved upon either here or in the much
and piously travelled roadway leading up to the Athenian
Parthenon through the Mnesiclean Propylaea. Various
traceable pedestals indicate that many monuments lined
this processional road, which so far resembled many others.
Between the gate of Appius and the overhanging Acropolis
rock is the small precinct of Pluto, which is approached by
a step or two and an entrance-gate. This small corner,
belonging to Demeter s self-constituted son-in-law, is remark
able rather for the striking configuration of the natural rock
o
1 94 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
that shuts it in on the west than for the slight traces of a
very small temple which it contains. The finding here first
of a bust representing Eubouleus, 1 the Eleusinian Hades,
and then of a bas-relief representing Demeter, Perse
phone, and Hades, establishes the proprietary right of
Aidoneus-Pluto to this spot, included though it be within
the sanctuary walls of the dread twain goddesses.
Within this small precinct facing north, and just south of
the intersection of the longest (or Acropolis) side with the
shortest side of the sacred pentagon, is a hole in the rock,
raised higher than man s stature above the general level.
In the rock below, and north of this aperture, are steps 2
roughly hewn leading to a height, and a foothold from
which it is easy for any one to climb through the hole and
enter the arched cave-like space beyond. This cave, as it
may be called, together with a larger one much resembling
it just south of it, would have seemed, and apparently did
seem, in myth-growing days, the very spot where Aidoneus
on his chariot might have swept with Persephone into his
nether abode. The rock overhanging the Cnidian 3 precinct
1 See note 3 above, p. 177 ; note i, p. 174 ; and Chr. Scherer, article
"Hades" in Roscher s Ausfuhrliches Lexicon. I hear of an article (not
procurable before going to press) in the Mittheilungen, wherein Dr. Kern
successfully maintains that this beautiful head represents not Eubouleus but
Triptolemus. This would tend to confirm my contention (see chapter ii.
above) that Demophoon is an interloper in the story of Demeter, and that
Triptolemus was the real nursling. Furthermore, it would tend to connect
Triptolemus with this precinct of Pluto, and to affiliate his worship with
that of Hades and lacchos. Cf. Daremberg et Saglio, p. 634, col. z.
2 Dr. Dorpfeld kindly calls my attention to the possibility that these
very roughly cut steps may have belonged to the arrangements for a
modern house.
3 What Attic tradition records as the coming of Demeter to Eleusis
gains in significance if we find reason to suppose this new departure of
nature-worship in Attica to have been prompted from the north, if Demeter
came from Thessaly as did Aesculapius and as Dionysus came from Thrace.
A very definite tradition asserts that the Cnidian sanctuary of the two god
desses was founded from Thessaly, as were the Coan and the Epidaurian rites
v THE PLUTONIAN PRECINCT 195
of Demeter and Persephone was found by Sir Charles
Newton to have similar peculiarities to these of the Eleu-
sinian Acropolis.
But, to return to the precinct of Hades-Pluto, nearly in
front of the two caves are unmistakable traces of a very
small "cella" or temple of Pluto. The foundations show
it to have been ten feet broad by sixteen feet long. The
head of Eubouleus-Triptolemus, 1 found near it, very closely
resembles one which was long called Virgil, and which is to
be found in the Capitoline Museum. It is none the less
beautiful because Professor Benndorf is almost alone in
attributing it to the Phidian age.
Emerging from the Plutonian precinct, and passing
a few steps southward on the Processional Way, turn
again westward, and there find the more or less uncertain
foundation-stones to which probably corresponded two
buildings. These are identified respectively, but only the
farther one confidently, with the two treasure-houses men
tioned in Eleusinian inscriptions. One may have been the
treasure-house of Demeter ; and if this be so, the other, in
case it was anything, was that of Persephone. The import
ance of the treasuries which these foundations may represent
is abundantly shown in the accounts of the temple-
funds so plentifully forthcoming of late years, and so well
in honour of Aesculapius. See above, ch. ii. and below, ch. vi. The com
ing of Demeter from Pyrasus and the Dotian plain of Thessaly is by no
means inconsistent with an aboriginal Eleusinian nature -worship and
nature-goddess. So too the Thracian Dionysus coming to Icaria absorbed,
and was absorbed by, an indigenous worship of a kindred nature to him
self. The known facts plainly require such an explanation. See above,
ch. iii.
1 For a very good reproduction of it, see Miss Harrison and Mrs.
Verrall s Mythology and Monuments, p. 105. Brunn has it in his
Monuments of Ancient Art, It gains much in interest and importance if
Dr. Kern can show that it represents Triptolemus.
196 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
edited. The reason why such scanty foundation remains
were here found is that the solid rock lies close to the
surface, and, accordingly, all traces of such buildings as
existed were most readily obliterated. 1 Therefore very
little concerning these would-be treasure-houses can be
ascertained.
Whether each of the two goddesses had an especial
temple for her own abiding can also never be ascertained
with certainty from anything that has been discovered on
the spot, and accordingly what may possibly be traces of
two small temples are only doubtfully to be described as
such. The facts, such as they are, may be stated as follows :
traces of a smaller temple, which might be attributed to
Persephone, are near the northern angle of the Hall of
Initiation to the east. The plainer traces of a temple,
larger, though still small, are visible at the northern end of
the raised terrace which runs between the Hall of Initiation
proper and the overhanging north-westward rock. Here
may conceivably have stood Demeter s temple on a higher
level, to the north of the same north angle. 2
And now I have mentioned the chief among the lesser
buildings, about none of which, excepting perhaps the first,
there can be reasonable certainty, (i) The small precinct
and small temple or " cella " of Plutus ; (2) and (3) the
supposed treasuries, one for each goddess ; (4) the very
problematical temple or cella of Persephone ; (5) the
equally doubtful temple or cella of Demeter. Besides
1 The poor Albanians, in giving themselves and their animals various
rudimentary comforts, have played fast and loose with the rock here.
2 Strabo s words (see note i, p. 189) make it certain that a temple of
Demeter formed one of the conspicuous features of the sanctuary ; and
the comparative insignificance in size and prominence of the remains on
this site leave the whole matter in doubt.
v THE HALL OF INITIATION 197
this there was in some place, not determined, within the
precinct a Neocorion, i.e. quarters for the neocoroi those
in executive charge of the buildings and minor concerns of
the sanctuary. 1
As for the great Initiation Hall, the most interesting by
far of all the features on this site, let us admit to start with
that its study is a matter of great perplexity, in spite of an
absolute certainty with regard to the most important leading
facts.
Your first feelings, as you wander up and down across
this Eleusinian wilderness of stones, are confusion and help
lessness. Before you lies what seems to be an incongruous
crowd of foundations for the bases of columns, no two of
which seem to be part of one scheme. A closer examina
tion shows in effect that there are many kinds of foundations,
bases, and traces of columns belonging by their manner of
construction to many epochs of building. These puzzling
and overlapping traces are multiplied especially at the
eastern angle of the Hall. That quarter of the ground
occupied by the whole Hall which lies nearest this eastern
angle contains fifty-six bases or traces of columns, while
upon all the remainder only thirty-seven can be found.
This curious fact leads to a closer examination of the
column -foundations where they are most numerous, and
here a wishing-cap is necessary. Put on this cap, while
looking at these shapeless-seeming ruins, and wish for all
the knowledge of the various masonry of various epochs
possessed by Dr. Dorpfeld, director of the German Institute
at Athens, or by Dr. Philios, 2 the indefatigable excavator at
1 See Appendix I. above, for some account of the later history of this
word i/eco/cdpos.
2 See his pamphlet (Athens, 1889, Ch. Wilberg) Fouillcs d & leu sis,
1882-87.
I 9 8 THE GODS AT ELEUS1S v
Eleusis. Then you would note how the various traces
gradually group themselves as follows: (i) twenty -five
small square foundations, coloured red on the plan, about
10 feet apart, these being wholly confined to this eastern
quarter of the site; (2) twenty places for round columns
15 feet apart, requiring (in the northern corner) one
more, of which no trace can be found, to make up the
symmetrical tale, twenty-one ; (3) six large square founda
tions requiring the addition of two more than the remains
found to complete the necessary eight. Besides these
three fashions, there is a fourth fashion of column founda
tion. These are distributed very curiously over the whole
space, forty-two bases in a square of a hundred feet more
or less.
To the smaller hall, destroyed by the Persians, belong
the first mentioned square-column foundations, discoverable
exclusively within the eastern quarter of the site, and
coloured red on the plan. This smaller hall may be called
the Hall of Pisistratus, though what is certainly known
about it is that it was destroyed by the Persians after Xerxes
defeat at Salamis. 1 Traces of their destructive fire have
come to light, giving the confirmation of our own eyes to
what Herodotus reports in general terms. In the year
479 B.C. Mardonius burned and overturned the Initiation
Hall of Pisistratus. Its building is attributed to the age of
Pisistratus because the foundation walls of it are practically
identical both in the materials used, the order of their
t l Before the Persians, King Cleomenes of Sparta seems to have de
vastated the sanctuary (Herod, vi. 75, cf. 64, and v. 74 and ff. ) Here is a
confirmation of the notion suggested by the nature of the remains of
the earlier Greek walls enclosing the precinct. They must have been a
fortification, otherwise a King of Sparta would never wantonly have
attacked them, or the sanctuary which they enclosed.
After D T Dorpfelds Plan in the Journal of the
Greek Archaeological Society 1887. and reproduced here.
by kind permission
PLAN OF EXCAVATIONS
Dotted halchmv &lt;t*n&lt;-t&lt;*fa ver* earliest
Red, colour shows the t.iwl* destroy &lt; &lt;! /n:
Grey wlour shows tf,,&lt; vork of Ictmus & later additions
# Alterations
NS
ELEUSIS, 1885-1887,
v HALLS OF PISISTRATUS, CIMON, ICTINUS 199
superposition, and the manner of their putting together, with
buildings known to have been built by Pisistratus, the great
advocate of Dionysus, the defender of faith in the gods at
Eleusis. The ceiling of this Hall was supported by twenty-
five interior columns, it was entered from the south-east
through a portico, and it can hardly have failed to justify the
twenty-five supporting columns by a large upper-story room
approached no doubt from the level of the upper terrace.
The Acropolis-rock had not of course been cut away at that
time.
After this Hall of Pisistratus a Hall of equal frontage but
twice as deep was built, by cutting into the rock for more
room. This Hall was supported by twenty -one interior
columns. To this important structure (which we may call
the Hall of Cimon, since it was built in his day) must be
allotted those twenty columns 15 feet apart, more than half
of their number being hopelessly entangled among the older
remains of the Hall of Pisistratus.
Now, therefore, the wilderness at the east angle of the
hall the columns, bases, and traces, fifty-six in number
perplexes us no longer. The eastern angle of the Hall
proper, in Ictinus plan, was the eastern corner of the
porch of the earlier Hall of Pisistratus. This early building
with its porch covered slightly more than one-fourth of the
ground allotted to the Hall of Ictinus, and about half
of that occupied by the Hall of Cimon. Of the fifty-six
bases and traces huddled together in this corner of the
whole space, twenty-five belong to the Hall of Pisistratus,
fifteen to that of Cimon, and sixteen to the last and
Roman refashioning of the building. There are no
columns or bases of columns here which belong to the
Hall of Ictinus, for the Hall of Ictinus consisted of two
2 oo THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
chambers, a new one added by Ictinus to the already
existing Hall of Cimon. This will be made clear by con
sulting the small plan here given and by comparing it with
the large one.
Before turning to a consideration of the Hall of Ictinus,
it is worth while to seek confirmation for the facts in the
architectural history of the spot thus far obtained. Cor
responding to some, if not to all, of these successive
temples, there must have been various walls of enclosure.
Around the wilderness of column bases, at various dis
tances and in various directions, extend foundations of
walls built in the most various manners of masonry. There
is the old fashion of wall called Cyclopean, there is the
wall which belongs to the day of Pisistratus, built after
the manner of the upper foundation-courses of the building
just south of the Erechtheum, between it and the Parthenon
at Athens. 1 Then come walls of later and better Greek
workmanship, belonging to the days of Cimon and Pericles.
Finally there are abundant traces everywhere of Roman
building.
The upshot of competent examination here gives us
traces of a building earlier even than the Hall of Pisistratus,
of some building dating back perhaps beyond history, a
building too around which ran a protecting wall. What
remains of it is indicated by the dotted hatching on the plan.
The whole space thus pre-historically pre-empted was much
smaller than the later precinct. All this may be con
veniently named the Cyclopean Hall, if it be remembered
that Cyclopean means almost anything, and that there is
nothing to show whether this early building was a hall or a
1 For photographs showing this foundation, see Appendix XL i. 14.
Cf. Mr. Leaf s photograph of Eleusinian foundations, ibid. ii. 40.
v CYCLOPEAN TRACES, ROMAN RESTORATIONS 201
fortress simply. This phrase shall commit us only to the
vaguest recognition of the antiquity of building upon
Demeter s Eleusinian place of worship, and will give as a
background for the successive Halls of Pisistratus, Cimon,
Ictinus, and the Roman Hall, the dim vision of a primi
tive place of refuge, and perhaps of a worship primitively
lodged after the fashion of the so-called " cave temple " l of
Apollo on Delian Cynthus.
But after these Cyclopean remains and the three Halls
above mentioned came the Romans and their buildings and
repairings. They enlarged the space occupied by the Hall
of Ictinus, especially towards the Acropolis-rock ; apparently
they tore down the wall by which Ictinus separated his
addition from the Hall of Cimon, and they suppressed the
eight heavy columns (represented on the large plan by six
large square foundations, and two dotted squares) of Ictinus
Hall, as well as the twenty-one columns of Cimon s Hall.
In place of these they put in forty-two columns of their own
more or less symmetrically distributed over the whole space.
Upon the Greek walls enclosing the whole sanctuary traces
of Roman repairing are tolerably clear. The restoration
of the upper and lesser ceremonial gate by Appius Claudius
probably amounted to a rebuilding, and the lower wall,
joining the Lower and Greater Propylaea to the Greek
fortification walls, is wholly Roman. To sum up the
history of building on this spot: Behind, everything we
have (i) the Cyclopean Hall; next came (2) the Hall
of Pisistratus ; then, after (3) the Hall of Cimon, came
(4) the Hall of Ictinus, which was succeeded by (5) the
Roman Hall.
And now it becomes necessary to give such account as
1 For some account of this, see below, chap. viii.
202
THE GODS AT E LEU SIS
may be possible of the Hall of Ictinus. I owe to the kind
ness of Dr. Dorpfeld the sketch-plan here given.
OUTLINE-SKETCH OF THE GROUND-PLAN OF
THE HALL OF ICTINUS
O
o
o
V
lol lol
-/
O
o
|ol [pi
1 1
o
JX
K
1
o
o
t-^-i rrr-i
U U
\Q\ \Q]
1
o
o
I,
X
I. Chamber added by Ictinus.
K. Hall of Cimon.
A. Foundations which later served for Philo s Porch.
This Hall of Ictinus was really two Halls, the old one of
Cimon, which it was apparently necessary to respect, and
the new one of Ictinus doubling the available space. It
seems likely, however, that the new was separated from the
old by a wall which was changed when Ictinus built from
the north-west outside wall of Cimon s Hall into a partition
wall between the two large chambers. The forty-two founda
tions in the Roman refashioning of the whole form so con
spicuous a feature on the large plan that it is difficult to
v THE HALL OF 1CTINUS 203
disentangle from them the work of Ictinus and Cimon.
The late character of these forty-two bases is proved by the
comparative poorness of their construction and by the
presence of a Roman inscription among materials built
into the most easterly of these forty -two bases. The
Romans made a slight gain in size by hewing a few more
inches out of the native rock, and hence their Hall was up
wards of 170 feet in length by about 169 in width. The
Hall of Ictinus, including both compartments, was ap
parently of the latter dimension both ways. That it had
a partition wall is made probable by the necessity of respect
ing what Cimon built, and still more nearly certain by the
survival in the Roman plan of two front doors of entrance.
These doors were necessary before they remodelled the
interior and removed the partition. Afterwards one large
one would have been in every way more effective and
useful, but so serious a departure from the original plan
was not made. Nothing is definitely known, however, of
what and where were the doors used in Greek days. Since
the Hall of Ictinus had this partition, its lower story would
not have been suited for the largest meetings. Hence the
necessity of an upper story where the space, divided below,
was thrown into one large square room. In this room,
entered from the upper terrace where lay the larger Temple
supposably that of Demeter we imagine services to have
been held in the greatest days of Athens.
There is no room for doubt as to the existence of an
upper story, because Plutarch s testimony is explicit, 1 and is
confirmed by various features of the site. The numerous
columns of the lower hall require it, as before said; and
moreover a carefully wrought terrace, 2 hewn out of the
1 See above, note i, p. 191. - Plutarch s
204 THE GODS AT E LEU SIS v
rock high up, on the level probably with its ceiling, calls
for it. Ictinus, following no doubt the practice used in
building the Hall of Cimon, utilised the receding con
figuration of the rock-hill, for the first story, by hewing
from a point high enough above the level of the Hall of
Pisistratus to give his ground floor sufficient height, and
thus placed its north and west corners in the solid rock ; he
was, in beginning again from that high point, so near the
rounding top of the hill that he could easily cut out this
upper ledge from which to step into the second story of his
great hall. To this ledge broad rock -cut stairs lead up
from a point near the western angle of the lower hall, while
narrower steps are found at the north angle. Mount these
stairs and you are on the artificial terrace just described,
and find that it is a continuation, beyond the outer
walls of the Hall, of the floor of the upper story. More
than the fact of its existence at the level of this still
existing ledge we do not know of Ictinus upper chamber or
hall, except that Metagenes of Xypeta, who fashioned the
outside ledge, set up the upper story columns. There is,
of course, very little doubt that a similar upper chamber
existed in the Hall of Pisistratus, all of whose essential
features were reproduced four times as large by Ictinus,
who here, as at Bassae, included the site of the ancient
sanctuary in his new building. At Bassae the old temple
of Apollo, facing east, was incorporated by Ictinus into
the great Temple facing north and south. The configura
tion of the Eleusinian Acropolis did not force the architect
to make any change in orientation, and Ictinus faced his
hall south-east just as the smaller hall of Pisistratus, its
predecessor, had faced. Only by a skilful use of new space
and of the upward slope of the rock Ictinus made his Hall
v THE PORTION OF HADES 205
look far longer in proportion to its width than it really was,
and therefore his building assumed something more near the
ordinary proportions of such a temple as the Parthenon.
The device above alluded to was the suggestion that the
back of the building was hidden in the rock, which was in
fact to some extent the case. Something in the finished
surface of a vertical course of rocks along the north-west
or Acropolis side of the raised ledge (or Sid^w/jia), already
talked of, makes it seem probable that this impression of a
temple to the gods of nether earth, partly hid by that jealous
element and partly showing in the light of day, was still
further enhanced by the suggestion of a portico towards the
Acropolis. It is conceivable that the roof of the upper
story should have covered more than the space above the
lower hall, by the extent of this ledge. Thus would the
demands of symmetry, always listened to by Greek artists,
and heeded by none more than by the architect of the
Parthenon, have been satisfied. This single story would
have looked like the top of a larger porch whose lower
parts were concealed. This would have been such a
counterpoise to the porch of Philo on the opposite or front
end as was allowed by the requirements of the ritual and
the configuration of the precinct of the gods at Eleusis.
Other considerations of proportion make this notion that a
porch was suggested at the back seem plausible to me.
One of these is that the space between the front wall of the
initiation chamber and the front of the colonnade of Philo s
porch is just about the width of the upper ledge extending
from the back wall of the same chamber (the wall hewn out
of the rock) to the point where the hill unhewn resumes its
natural upward slope. The second argument from propor
tion is simply the Greek habit, and especially that of Ictinus,
206 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
which would seem to have abhorred undisguised and un
blushing squareness in a building. Ictinus was willing to
increase at Bassae the difference between length and
breadth which he had made so markedly in the Parthenon
(as compared with previous buildings), and there was still
more reason for him to do something of the kind at
Eleusis, since the total height of Philo s portico some
equivalent to which was contemplated in Ictinus plan
must have been that of the two stories behind it. This
must have seemed to come dangerously near l the dimen
sions of the hall itself. Therefore, without some such
device he would have had a building of very obviously
monotonous proportions, not far from a cube in the effect
of its mass upon the eye. With the aid, however, of Philo s
porch and of the corresponding porch suggested at the back,
the whole building viewed from without gains the appearance
of a lofty structure about half as long again as it is wide. The
back of this building showed only indistinctly because its
base was wholly entangled and involved in the hill out of
which the front portion had completely disengaged itself,
standing forth with its portico of fourteen lofty columns.
Nether earth clung to her fraction of this Hall of the
Eleusinian gods, just as she claimed her fraction of fair
Persephone s life.
Such then was the Telesterion, the great house of wor
ship at Eleusis, the enlarged and embellished substitute
for that once built according to the commands given by
Demeter to Triptolemus, and to his father and brethren.
1 I do not of course mean to suggest the possibility of its really having
been even half as high as the hall was long. But the height was of course
exceptional, and to it so far as the eye of one approaching Philo s porch,
or the building as Ictinus left it, was concerned had to be added that of
steps leading up to it.
v GREATER AND LESSER MYSTERIES 207
She commanded that it be built above the well Callichoros
by name where Celeus daughters found her sorrowing as
she sat. This well and the Agelastos Petra or Laughless
Stone close by it, upon which the goddess sat, cannot now
be found. Such was not the case in ancient days, as is
shown by the following record found in one of the inscribed
temple accounts unearthed upon the spot.
" Paid for the transport of 25,000 bricks to the Eleusinian
temple in Athens from the (Agelastos) Laughless Stone,
120 drachmae." From these same accounts it further
appears that the Rarian plain memorable because^ it was
there that Triptolemus first taught men the cultivation of
grain was owned and farmed by the Eleusinian temple
administration. One entry shows that the grain from this
field came to the priest at Eleusis, and another entry runs :
" To Nicon, for removing a corpse from the plain and
for its purification." An especial item allowed in this
account is for a pig used in the cleansing or purification
just mentioned. The account above alluded to, of 25,000
bricks transported from Eleusis to the Eleusinian precinct
in Athens at the expense of the administrators of the
sanctuary at Eleusis, indicates that the two holy precincts
were under one management, and recalls the story of the
institution of the Lesser Mysteries at Athens and their close
affiliation with the Eleusinian festival. 1
This lesser and affiliated festival was celebrated at
Athens in the month of flowers (February-March), and the
Athenian precinct where these Lesser Mysteries took place
was appropriately called the Eleusinion. Of this and of its
two temples, one of Demeter and Persephone, and one of
Triptolemus, I have already had occasion to speak, and
1 See above, ch. iv.
208 THE GODS AT E LEU SIS v
also of the statue which it contained representing that great
religious mediator, Epimenides of Crete, who consecrated
this Eleusinion, and through the Lesser Mysteries made
of the worship at Eleusis a bond of union between those
old-time rivals, Athens and Eleusis. To the former and
more or less exclusively Eleusinian and patrician worship
of Demeter, Persephone, and Hades, a new and popular
feature attached itself in honour of the Icarian and Athenian
Dionysus, and the yearly visit of Dionysus lacchus to the
gods at Eleusis was made a cardinal and carnival feature in
the Eleusinian Mysteries, which thus became a pledge of
brotherhood and equality for all the tribes of Attic-born
men. 1
The Lesser Mysteries at Athens were a sort of preface
to the greater ones of Eleusis, 2 and the time of their cele
bration was earlier in the year. The Greater or Epoptical
Mysteries did not come until the month Boedromion
(August-September), six months later than the flower-month
(Anthesterion) of the Lesser Mysteries.
The ordinary progress of initiation was as follows : In
the flower month at Athens an applicant could become a
mystes a novice, let us say by participation in the Lesser
Mysteries at the Athenian Eleusinion. Thus, and appar
ently only thus, was a man qualified to take part, six months
later, in the Greater Mysteries at Eleusis. But even then he
appeared at Eleusis only as a mystes or novice, and could
not join in all the acts of worship or see all the ceremonial.
After a year had elapsed, however, our mystes became an
1 Mannhardt very truly says that the inspiration drawn from initiation
at Eleusis by the noblest spirits of Greece has illustrated the sanctuary
there as a place where humanity made one of its most ennobling forward
steps (Posthumous Essays, "Demeter").
2 The apxujj f3a&lt;ri.\evs with four commissioners (eTri/xeA^rcu) appears to
have controlled the whole cult at Athens and Eleusis.
v THE GREATER MYSTERIES 209
epoptes, and as such saw with his own eyes and heard with
his own ears all that the Greater or Epoptical Mysteries
afforded. The religious privileges of the completely initiated
are reached at Eleusis by two qualifying stages, as who
should say by baptism at the Lesser, and confirmation at the
Greater Mysteries. 1 The vague and unprecise terms in which
the full ceremony is described are terms of sight. The
Epoptes or Viewer is said to have Autopsy, or sight with his
own eyes Real Vision. These hints, with others, such as
the connection between showing light and the title of the
leader of the mystic ceremonial who was called Hierophant,
persuade some that after a period of darkness the initiated
saw a great light.
Little as we know of the unrevealed ceremonial that
took place within the Eleusinian precinct, we know that
enormous numbers, as many perhaps as 30,000,2 gathered
from various parts of Greece went from Athens, and we
know something in detail of the preliminaries at Athens and
of the observances on the Sacred Way to Eleusis. The
whole festival lasted about twelve days. Several days before
it began there was a preliminary meeting at Athens. Just
one day before it there was also at Athens the day of puri
fication. All the mystae 3 and every creature and thing
1 Plutarch in his life of Demetrius Poliorcetes (26) says of Demetrius : r6re
8 o$v dvafcvyvvuv els ras Adrjvas cypa-^ev 6 n /SouXercu ira.pa.yev6/ji.evos
evdbs /j.vr]drjvaL /cai rty reXeT-rji/ (Liracrav airb T&V fjuicp&v
eTTOTTTLKijjv trapa.\af3ew, TOVTO 5" ou Otfjurov ty ovfte yeyovbs irpbrepov
. . . eTTUTrrevov de TouX(%i0"ro eviavrbv dtaXelTrovres. The
intimidated governors at Athens did not dream of refusing this unparalleled
demand, but resorted to a juggle with their calendar that the letter of the
sacred law might be observed.
2 See Herod, viii. 65, where the visionary procession on the Sacred
Way is seen Kovioprbv x.upeovra. O.TT EXewnVos ws dvdp&v /txdXtora Kr) rpiff-
3 See ibid, the account of the freedom of all to be initiated. Dicaeus
there describes the Eleusinian festival for the benefit of king Demaratus,
P
210 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
that was to play a part in the great ceremonial underwent
purgation by washing in the sea.
Sea-surges dash all human harms away, says Euripides
somewhere, 1 expressing a belief well-nigh universal in
ancient Greece. Truly the sea entered into Greek worship,
with its suggestions of infinite space and calm, of limitless
motion, its mighty and tumultuous heart-beat. At Eleusis
and elsewhere the ever -sounding sea, whose surge still
echoes through the most beautiful and pious masterpieces
of the tragic, the lyric, and the epic muse, was present with
worshippers whose frequent footfall reverberated through
the precincts and the dwellings of the gods in Greece.
The first two days of the Eleusinian-Athenian festival
were spent in Athens after these ceremonies of purgation.
Solemn preparations were there and then completed for
the great ceremonial procession from Athens to Eleusis
along the Sacred Way and through the sacred gates into the
precinct and its Great Hall of Initiation. By means of all
this pomp Dionysus-Iacchos was associated with Demeter
and Persephone at Eleusis, and Dionysus became one
of the gods at Eleusis, under the name of lacchos
which was chanted by the mystae all through the day
while they brought him to Eleusis, and again during the day
spent in bringing him back to his home in the Athenian
laccheion, 2 within the Eleusinion already much spoken of.
Underlying all the light-heartedness shown by those who
saying : TT^V 8 opTyv ralJTrjv &yov&lt;ri Adyvaiot dva irdvra Urea rr/ M.r)rpl
Kal TTJ Koi/p?7 (the regular phrase for Demeter and Persephone), Kal
avruv re 6 j8ouA6/uej os Kal TWV &\\uv EXXTyj WJ /iveiTcu Kal
TT}v (fiuvriv r?7S a/comets kv ratr-fl ry bprrf laKxdfrovffi. This last word
describes the cry " lacch , Oh lacchos," and thus brings into prominence
the part of Dionysus in these yearly observances.
1 /. T. 1193.
2 Plutarch, Arist. 27. See above the citations from Herod, viii. 65.
v YEARLY PROCESSION OF THE MYSTAE 211
joined this procession was an incommunicable solemnity
shadowed forth in that strangely awe-inspiring chapter
where Herodotus tells of a vision of floating dust and of
echoing cries from a ghostly choir of disembodied celebrants
on the Sacred Way from Athens. 1 This host from the
world beyond led lacchos to the rescue at a time when
Attic sanctuaries had been devastated and Athenian altars
overturned, when none dared longer to walk in the
deserted streets of Athens or visit her ruined temples. By
this portentous apparition the doom of the Persian invader
was foreshadowed and the coming of a brighter day was
assured by the gods at Eleusis. They sent forth in the
darkest hour of danger and despair a rescuing band of
hope to lead fainting Hellas from martyrdom to peace.
After the dust and the sound as of many voices, a mist arose
and floated off towards Salamis, foreboding the destruction
of the Persian fleet. Thus in the eyes of Herodotus a fit
spokesman here as elsewhere for all the faithful the Holy
Alliance at Eleusis of Demeter, Persephone, and Dionysus
the Mother, the Daughter, and the Son was the com
forter and the saviour. Through it were assured knowledge
and maintenance of Greek laws and religion, progress in
learning, and union of heart with all the divinities of Hellas. 2
No wonder then, if the yearly procession of the living
mystae was often thought of as a foretaste of the life beyond,
a dim vision of happiness to be hereafter in the islands of
the blest, a rehearsal or promise in this world of the
performance in the world to come. No wonder that
1 The first reading suggests that Herodotus is thinking of a procession
from Eleusis to Athens ; that is not, however, necessarily the case. For
the passage, see above, note 2, p. 209.
2 rbv rpo(f&gt;{a, rbv ffWTrjpa di 8v eldov v6fjiovs"E\\r)i&gt;as,
0eoij.
212 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
Aristophanes puts away for a moment his cap and bells
when, having brought down into the world below his
caricature of the god Dionysus accompanied by Xanthias, a
type of the boisterous clown in old comedy, he suddenly
confronts these two jesters with the march, the music, and
the song of a mystic chorus of the initiated, who are repeating
in the world below the yearly procession from Athens to
Eleusis. They are bringing home the god lacchos. Here
is a striking and unstudied homage paid to the solemnity
of Eleusinian worship in the sudden cessation of boisterous
fooling at the approach of the mystae. 1 Breathless and all
in a tremor they finally hear the mystic cry from afar :
" lacch , oh lacchos ! lacch , oh lacchos ! " 2 Then they
know that the band of the faithful is coming, and are
abashed, and for the first time they hold their peace.
Meanwhile the mystae draw near and enter the orchestra
with a song to the god in their midst : 3 " Stir thou the fire-
flakes of torches, whirling them with thy hands, lacch , oh
lacchos, fire-bearing star of night and of our mystic rites.
Look, the meadow is aflame with fire ; old men s knees are
lithe for dancing now, they shake off all their pains and all
the time-long weariness of hoary years in the rites of holy
observance ; but thou, flaming with thy torch, lead on the
forward march to the blossoming meadows by the stream."
Here, as a preface to the solemn invocation of each of
the three gods at Eleusis in turn, the Hierophant bids the
profane and uninitiated to depart : "I forbid them, I forbid
them again, and again a third time I forbid them ; let them
make way for the initiated." Turning to the latter, he then
1 Aristoph. Frogs, 312, cf. 154 ff.
2 Ibid. 316-459.
3 Only the substance is here given, except where every word has its
important bearing.
v THE " FROGS" OF ARISTOPHANES 213
says : " Raise ye the voice of song, begin your night-long
revels that beseem the festival we keep."
Then follows a solemn processional song in honour of
Persephone, which is full of the cheer of glad spring.
Manfully each is advancing towards the flowering nooks
of fair meadows, dancing, gibing, frolicking, and railing
cheerily. For verily each has had his fill of fasting and
purification. " March on in cadence, and take care to exalt
right heartily the saviour goddess with your voice in song
uplifted, for she it is who saith that she is the country s
salvation forever assured."
Now the Hierophant bids them invoke and give thanks
to the harvest-queen Demeter, and thus their song begins :
" Demeter, queen of hallowed services, join now in help of
thine own to save them. Suffer me to dance the livelong
day in unendangered jollity, and let me utter much in jest,
and much in earnest too. Make my doings worthy of thy
festival, and when my frolic hour is past, and all my fooling
done, victorious let me crown my brow."
And now the Hierophant calls for a song in honour of
the last of the three, the last-come god at Eleusis, who is
first in the hearts of those whom he has led and who have
brought him to the Eleusinian merry-making mysteries.
" lacchos," they fervently sing, "most precious to my heart,
make this the sweetest moment of the feast, follow along
with me to the dwelling of the goddess, and show thee a
stranger to weariness though long is the journey that thou
art making. Oh lacchos, lover of the dance, come thou with
me to help me on the way. Yea, in merrily tattered garb
with thy sandals recklessly torn thou canst discover the
way to let us dance and play and pay no penalty. Oh
lacchos, lover of the dance, come thou with me to Jielp me on
2i 4 THE GODS AT ELEUS1S v
the way. For verily I gave a sidelong glance at a bit of a
girl just now, and through a rent in her bosom s array I
caught sight of my beauteous playmate s charms. Oh
lacchos, lover of the dance, come thou with me to help me on
the way"
The unruly element, associated chiefly with a certain
phase of the cult of Dionysus, has asserted itself more and
more in this last song, and at the end it reaches such a
pitch of license that the two jesters quite recover their
balance of mind, while the chorus of the initiated yields
wholly to a headstrong impulse. Trusting in lacchos for
impunity, they fling wide the floodgates of ribaldry, raining
alike upon the unjust and the just their jibes, sacred and
profane, mentionable and unmentionable. "Now if you
choose," they say, " let us join one and all in scoffing at
Archedemus. Why, he has lived to be seven years old
before he cut a single Athenian grinder, 1 you know, but
still he s in business in the demagoguing line up in the world
among the living corpses, a captain in the knavery of the
world." 2 And so the mud-throwing goes merrily from bad
to worse and worst, giving a wonderfully telling and ideally
realistic picture of scenes that were yearly enacted by the
real procession from Athens to Eleusis. This feature in
the day s doings was connected with a bridge over the
Attic river Cephissus. Just out of the gates of Athens,
just after various solemn preliminaries at the city shrines
had ended, the mystae halted, and took their revenge for
days of purification and fasting. Here they let their pent-
up jollity have its full fling, and these jibes at the bridge
have also to take their part in the netherworld celebration
described by Aristophanes.
1 O$K tyvtre (pparepas.
v THE MEASURE LED BY THE FATES 215
At last there is a pause, the Hierophant bids them re
sume their march, and gradually as they go the thought of
the woes of Demeter shows itself first in their choice of
words, and finally in the return of serious thoughts and
solemn aspirations* which form the pious burden of their
closing strain. " Onward we go to the flower-faced meadows
where abundant roses grow. On we go, in our own merry
fashion dancing, dancing more than well l the measure led
off by the glorious Fates. On us alone in very truth the
sun doth shine, we only know the light of gladness, as
many of us as have passed through the rites of the Mysteries,
and lead our lives in piety among the native born and
the strangers within our city s gates."
Here we have a case where all the essentially religious
features of the yearly holiday-making in honour of the gods
at Eleusis were enacted before the eyes of those who under
ordinary circumstances would yearly take part in the cele
bration themselves the whole Athenian public. But the
circumstances were extraordinary ; and although the scene
is in a comedy, there is throughout a pervasive seriousness
which alone would require us to assign a religious motive
for its performance that motive was the satisfaction of a
fervent desire to propitiate the gods at Eleusis felt uni
versally at Athens. The play was brought out in January
of the year 405, just after the dearly bought victory of
Athens at Arginusae. 2 Ever since the Spartans had taken
the advice of the exiled Alcibiades and maintained a garri
son in Attica at Decelea, the merriment of the yearly
1 rbv Ka\\LXopuTa.Tov (rpdirov] has an unmistakable reminiscence in
meaning and sound of the KaXXixopov (fiptap, where Demeter sat until
she was comforted there by dances. Homer, Hymn to Demeter, 272 ;
Pausanias, I. xxxviii. 6.
2 See Kock s introduction to his edition of the Frogs.
2i 6 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
procession to Eleusis had been greatly interfered with, even
though it be supposed to have had the protection of a
sacred truce. 1 Thus at a time when the Athenians were in
a gloomy and thoroughly discouraged state of mind, the
religious consolations and assurances of salvation gained by
the normal celebration at Eleusis and the processions before
and after it were so curtailed that, instead of expecting help
from Eleusis, the pious Athenian must have feared that the
Eleusinian Alliance of gods was offended by years of com
parative neglect. Then it was that Aristophanes, inspired
perhaps by the story recorded in Herodotus of a visionary
celebration held by the departed in the upper world, hit
upon the idea of having something like it celebrated by his
living mimes in a stage counterfeit of the world below.
The resulting success of his play was overwhelming and
unexampled. The Frogs was acted a second time without
alteration that same year, and over and above all the
ordinary marks and rewards of victory, the poet had given
to him a branch of the sacred Athenian olive-tree. This
last honour was a rare and high mark of popular gratitude
for great help to the State, paid afterwards to Thrasybulus.
It was equivalent to the public bestowal of a crown of gold,
which fell to the lot of Demosthenes. Only the propitiation
of the favour of the gods at Eleusis, a thing quite independ
ent of the merits of the play, could have warranted such a
mark of favour to Aristophanes.
To his audience the presentation which Aristophanes
gave of the procession and the rites before and after up to
the moment when the real and most unutterable mysteries
began was in fact eminently consoling, for the poet, without
1 The willingness of Sparta to interfere with Eleusinian worship had
been amply shown by the conduct of Cleomenes referred to above.
v STATIONS OF THE YEARLY PILGRIMAGE 217
dwelling upon details known familiarly to all, reproduced
the spirit and the truth of the observance. Indeed as the
mystae leave his stage they are proclaiming the justice and
loving-kindness of Athens to all within her gates. In order
to complete in detail the picture given by our poet, certain
facts familiar to his audience, or else presented to them
visually on the stage, must be rehearsed and heeded. Some
of them are as follows : The Hierophant or leader and
marshaller of the procession had other names such as
laccha^ogos, the Vauntcourier or Leader of lacchos.
Through the Holy Gate they passed crowned with parsley
and with ivy where fruits were intertwined. In their hands
they carried Bacchus lighted torches or else Demeter s
sheaves, and thus their mere array was eloquent of har
mony between the goddess and the god. Many were the
stations required by immemorial custom for this procession.
Harvest usages observed in the intervening villages
naturally grouped themselves around the passage of these
pilgrims, who formed the annual escort of the farmer s god,
Dionysus, to Eleusis. 1 Before the Attic Cephissus was
reached the district of Lakkiadae required a pious pause.
Phytalus there had played host to Demeter, and his reward
had been the gift of figs. With jibes and jollity the
Eleusinian band crossed the memorable bridge and ap
proached the altars of most gentle Zeus beyond the
Cephissus. Reminiscences of heroic Theseus detained
them then, and after this they halted at the shrine of
Cyamites, giver of beans. Much as the Bean -giver was
here revered, the beans which he gave, and all beans, were
strictly excluded from the Eleusinian precinct of Demeter.
1 For a more complete account see F. Lenormant s La -vote sacrle
already alluded to.
218 THE GODS AT ELEUSIS v
This, says Pausanias, is a mystery known to those initiated
at Eleusis. 1
In the pass where stands the modern cloister and church
of Daphne they stopped at a temple originally Apollo s, but
where later on Demeter and Athena shared the sanctuary
with Apollo. Then, just after a forward glimpse of the bay
of Eleusis, halt was made at Aphrodite s temple, and the
tomb of Eumolpus was reached. This great Eleusinian
hero welcomed them and lacchos to the Eleusinian plain,
all the more heartily perhaps because, like Dionysus himself,
he was from Thrace. 2
A whole book was written in antiquity by Polemon on
this processional progress, and Pausanias repeats from this
source many interesting details, willing all the more to give
information on the preliminaries of the great Eleusinian
festival because divine warning has sealed his lips about
the Mysteries themselves.
It does not suit the present theme, however, to dwell
further upon details ; enough has already been said to
show how great a complexity of ritual, what an enormous
variety of local customs, attended the annual progress of
Dionysus to Eleusis. If the ceremonial used upon his
arrival were known to us, we should doubtless marvel still
more at the power of growth and of fusion inherent in the
local religions of Attica, at the way in which Demeter and
Persephone tamed the wildness of Thracian Dionysus, while
all three counteracted the bloodless gloom of Hades and
were united with him at Eleusis in the time-honoured
observance of eight hundred years.
1 The bean seems by long familiarity to have fallen into contempt, so
that we no longer shudder at it, and are only amused at Pythagorean
scruples which led men to die rather than pass through a field planted
with this tragic vegetable. 2 Strabo, VIII. vii. i (383).
VI
AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS
ONE of the great features of the Greater Mysteries com
memorated the Eleusinian initiation of the god Aescul
apius. In the fabulous past this god of healing had crossed
the Saronic gulf and associated himself and his Epidaurian
worship with Athens and Eleusis, and this mythical arrival
prefigured, as it were, the introduction of Aesculapian wor
ship at Athens, and the renown of his Athenian shrine
founded from Epidaurus in historical times.
In the days of his widest influence Aesculapius, the god
of healing, was looked upon in spite of various records
making him a son of Zeus as the son of Apollo. So com
pletely was he associated at one time or another with his
father Apollo Epicures or Epicurios, the supporter of
health, that we may if we choose look upon him as
Apollo s plenipotentiary in the comparatively late legend
that connects him with Eleusis. 1 A tie of more than com-
1 The influence of Pythagoreanism upon the beginnings of medicine
is not less abundantly proven than the close tie that bound Pythagoras
and his school to Apollo. Seven of the Alexandrine doctors (see Darem-
berg s list) bore the name Apollonius. This denoted one whose spirit
was under Apolline guidance. Such a son of the healing spirit of Apollo
was Aesculapius, the divine exemplar to whom Greek doctors looked up.
220 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
mon strength seems to attach him to Demeter and Perse
phone, for he is associated with them in certain bas-reliefs.
His connection with Dionysus is vaguer by far, but not less
real.
Ultimately it may be possible to make out with some
clearness the precise nature of this tie binding Aesculapius
to the gods at Eleusis. But, in the present state of know
ledge, the closest scrutiny of Aesculapius and his worship
only reveals uncertain associations and resemblances.
Like the gods at Eleusis, Aesculapius was not recognised
in the fulness of his subsequent godhead by the Greeks
of Homer s epoch. Aesculapius, like those same gods,
but far more vaguely and uncertainly, is a nature -god.
Like Dionysus and Demeter he, or at least his character
istic element, came to an ultimate and more southerly
birth-place from the north. 1 Perhaps he may be looked
upon as a netherworld nature-divinity, the same in many
respects with Dionysus, but without his tragic intensity.
To this residuum add something of the Olympian mildness
of Zeus, and you have a being who may with equal appro
priateness be classed with the netherworld brother of Zeus
or be called a son of Zeus. Dionysus came from Thrace
In later days Apollonius of Tyana (see Appendix IV. below), the favourite
of Aesculapius, stood for the same Apolline perfection. In prayers and
offerings at Aesculapius shrine Apollo was commonly named first and then
Aesculapius, and furthermore, according to the rule of Hippocrates, every
doctor qualified as such by an oath in the name of Apollo the healer,
and of Aesculapius, of Hygieia and Panacea, and of all the gods and
all the goddesses."
1 I have not found it either possible or advisable to go into the theory,
a plausible one, that the Thracians may have been the Pelasgian pre
decessors of what we call the Greek civilisation, and that we should not
talk of an invasion from the north, but rather of a survival or inheritance.
According to this view the most ancient traces of building on the Acropolis,
whether of Eleusis or of Athens, might be attributed to these Pelasgo-
Thracians.
vi NORTHERN ORIGIN OF THE GOD 221
and from Macedonia just beyond the range of Mount
Olympus, Aesculapius came from that part of Thessaly
which is closest to these mountains, and Demeter s Thes-
salian origin was from Pyrasus not far away. At Pyrasus
was Demeter s first home, and among the mountain
tribes near by Aesculapius originated. He was the tribal
god of the half mythological people called Phlegyae and
Lapithae. In the wake of northern tribes this god Aescu
lapius a more majestic figure than the blameless leech of
Homer s song came by land to Epidaurus and was carried
by sea to the eastward island of Cos. With him perhaps
was borne from her Thessalian home the goddess Demeter,
who found her Cnidian shrine not far from the Coan home
of Aesculapius. This southward journey is the counterpart
of that by which Dionysus is supposed to have reached,
with bands of Thracian invaders, Attica and Boeotia as well
as his island home on Naxos. Our knowledge of these
invasions, Thracian and Thessalian, is so misty that it is
well-nigh absurd to attempt to say which preceded the
other, or indeed to maintain with any vigour that all these
various divinities cannot have been brought in by one and
the same southward movement of mountain tribes ; for the
boundary line separating Thessalians from Macedonians,
and the distinction never clear between Macedonians
and Thracians, are not strictly applicable to these prehistoric
days.
Arrived from the north, Aesculapius grew in importance
with the growth of Greece, but may not have attained his
greatest power until Greece and Rome were one. At all
events every stage of his power and prestige connects itself
so closely with the various phases of secular medicine that,
in order to understand the results of recent excavations at
222 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
Athens and Epidaurus, made at both places in sanctuaries
of Aesculapius, something must be said about the position
of Greek doctors and the history of Greek medicine, sacred
and secular. This last distinction was certainly not made
until after the fabled siege of Troy, as is shown by the
earliest record of Greek opinion about doctors which is to
be found in the Iliad. One of the sons of Aesculapius,
Machaon, was seriously wounded in a melee. When he
fell disabled, consternation seized the Greeks until Nestor s
timely aid was invoked. Nestor, the personification of
respectable tradition in those days, bears off the healer
Machaon, declaring roundly, as he does so, that a doctor is
far better worth saving than many warriors unskilled in
leechcraft. Plainly a doctor, as Nestor understood the
word, meant not a secular but a sacred person, and
medicine was both sacred and secular. Here is a half
superstitious and wholly generous admiration for skill
in medicine that may be called a typically Greek senti
ment ; since it never has died out in Greece, and is found
intact among the Homerically simple-minded peasants of
to-day. 1
It will eventually be necessary to analyse this typically
Greek sentiment of Nestor s and to appeal to the Homeric
poems at large about doctors and medicine. Thus we shall
understand on the one hand the worship of Aesculapius as
a wonder-worker, and on the other the non-miraculous pro
fessional skill possessed by Greek doctors who pursued the
art of healing and perfected the science of medicine inde
pendently of the god. Let us begin our survey at a time
when doctors had a considerable knowledge of medicine.
This unmiraculous and scientific profession may be traced
1 See Appendix V. on the status of Greek doctors in modern times.
vi HIPPOCRATES AND DEMOCEDES 223
back to a correspondingly positive and unsuperstitious
aspect of Homeric medicine. 1
Let us consider the condition of Greek medicine as it
was in the days of Hippocrates of Cos, ordinarily miscalled
the father of Greek medicine. A casual glance at Littre s
complete edition of all works handed down under the name
of Hippocrates shows that among them are monuments of
sound medical labours carried out before his day. Indeed
Hippocrates dealt with a large body of ascertained medical
facts, and Greek medicine was far advanced when he began.
To make this apparent we need only consider the career of
Democedes as related by Herodotus.
Two generations before Hippocrates, in the second half
of the sixth century B.C., this Democedes lived, and enjoyed
an Asiatic renown, equivalent in those days to what our
doctors call a European reputation. Starting from the far
west, Croton in Italy, where Pythagoreanism had given a
great impetus to the study of medicine, 2 the alert and
ready-witted Democedes went to Aegina and distanced all
competitors in the race for appointment there. This was
the more brilliant, says Herodotus, because he was, when he
entered the lists, without the instruments freely used by his
fellow-candidates. A year s service on Aegina as public
1 Daremberg, Histoire des Sciences Mtdicales, I. ch. iii.
2 The influence of many philosophers may be traced in the method and
opinions of Hippocrates, but probably no school affected the beginnings
of medicine so much as that of Pythagoras. See, among the letters at
tributed to Apollonius of Tyana, number xxiii. , Pythagoras said that
medicine came most near to divinity, and inasmuch as this was the case,
medicine should care for the soul as well as for the body; or else the
whole living being would fail of full health from having his higher element
diseased." The Pythagorean Alcmaeon of Croton was addicted to anatomy
he dissected animals ; and these studies contributed to give a specially
useful bent to the school of medicine at Croton, of whose renown Hero
dotus makes admiring mention. It must be remembered that Croton was
the centre of Pythagoreanism.
224 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
practitioner paid by the state so increased the reputation of
Democedes that Athens offered him the same duties and an
increase of salary. He was no sooner settled at his work in
Athens than Polycrates, the too-fortunate tyrant of Samos,
succeeded in getting him by doubling his salary. A call
still further east soon came to Democedes, a promotion
under the disguise of complete disaster. The flood of
fortune that had so long upborne his patron Polycrates
ebbed suddenly away. Democedes, captured and enslaved
during the sack of Samos, was hurried into the far interior,
to the palace of Darius. Long a despised and unnoted
captive, he was at last terrified by a summons to the
king. The rest of the story, beginning with his refusal
to acknowledge his own skill, repeated itself at the court
of the Duke of Savoy in the sixteenth century, 1 and is
travestied in one of Moliere s best farces. Threats over
came the great doctor s scruples; and Darius sprain,
which had only been aggravated by the treatment of the
accredited Egyptian doctors, was quickly and completely
cured.
The story of Democedes career proves at least that
Herodotus, writing and living early in the days of Pericles
and Hippocrates, believed that skilled doctors of Greek
training had been in request as such for a century and a
half at least. To show how advanced was the condition of
medical science in the day of Herodotus, there is all manner
of undoubted testimony. Socrates for instance, who
was only eight years older than the great Coan doctor,
throws light upon this point in his chaff of a friend named
Euthydemus, who undertook to make a stir in the world by
having many books. " Of course you who have so many
1 See Malgaigne s Chirurgie grecque avant Hippocrate,
vi THE CO AN SANCTUARY 225
books are going in for being a doctor," says Socrates, and
then he adds, " there are so many books on medicine, you
know." Euthydemus repudiates this inference with indigna
tion. Whatever the quality of these books may have been,
their number must have been great to give point to this
chaff. Xenophon is nearly contemporary though some
what later, and his testimony may be added. The liberal
provision of medical care for his retreating army, the
matter-of-course way in which the most suitable remedies get
themselves promptly applied on occasion all this tells of
an established system of military practice, 1 and proves again
how little sense there ever was in saying that Greek medicine
began in 460 B.C. with Hippocrates of Cos. There can be
no doubt that Hippocrates was not bred under the shadow
of the great Coan temple of Aesculapius for nothing. His
own writings prove that he heeded well the lore of the
priests at Cos. For, although he is not the author of the
compilation made from materials accumulated at the Coan
temple and included among his supposed work, he plainly
used that compilation, and was guided by the traditions
which it embodies. It is equally certain that he gathered
in the fruits of many generations of zealous labour in surgery,
and it seems possible that much of the surgery before his
time had been developed quite independently, without
knowledge, so to speak, or connivance of Aesculapius, the
god of medicine. There is at all events little or nothing to
show that Aesculapius was worshipped in Magna Grecia
and at Croton, while Democedes, who was trained there,
certainly was specially qualified as a surgeon. Malgaigne
1 See in the Gazette Hebdomadaire de Mddecine et de Chirurgie for
June 2oth 1879, Dr. Corlieu s " 6tude m^dicale sur la retraite des 10,000
precde3de considerations sur la me decine militaire dans les armies
grecques."
Q
226 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
goes too far if he claims that Democedes had not a full
acquaintance with the remedies in use when he flourished. 1
It is best, however, not to linger over the question
whether or not the surgery known to Hippocrates had
become as intimately associated with the shrines of Aescu
lapius and the guild of the Asclepiadae as the other tradi
tions and practices which made up early Greek medicine. 2
One thing at least is certain, that necessity was the mother
of this invention \ it had a secular origin in constant war
fare. To the bickerings of earliest Greece science owes a
greater debt than is often recognised. The fullest record of
the way in which this debt was incurred is found in the Iliad^
that poem of glorified bloodshed. Here is the positive, the
secular, the scientific aspect of Homeric medicine. There
can be no reasonable doubt that all the minute descriptions
given in the Iliad of wounds, thrusts, and contusions were
listened to by men of Homer s time with a breathless interest.
Everybody finds them more or less trying now. To know in
one of these battles just where the man was struck, just how
far the weapon went, and exactly what was the behaviour
of the striker and the struck when the blow was given,
seems of slight interest or of none at all to-day. The
wonderful thing to us is that there should ever have been a
1 Malgaigne and Daremberg are at variance here. See Ch. Darem-
berg, tat de la Mtdecine entre Hom&re et Hippocrate, p. 52.
2 For an astonishingly unsubstantiated claim that Democedes and the
medical school of Croton were absolutely outside the domain of Aescu
lapius and uninfluenced by his worship, see Guardia s La Mtdecine a
travers les Sibcles. This book would perhaps not be one to mention if
it had not given the authority of its writer s scholarship to the useless
theory that in ancient as in modern times there was a recognised conflict
between "science and religion." A particularly misleading reproduction
of Guardia s arbitrary and baseless account of the worship of Aesculapius
and its relation to sound medicine can be found in an essay read before the
Birmingham Speculative Club by Balthazar W. Foster, M.D., and pub
lished in 1870.
vi THE MEDICINE OF HOMERIC DA YS 227
popular interest in these slaughterous minutiae of the human
frame. But, for all that, Homer s careful accuracy is better
art, and of more enduring interest, than the loose and
laughable anatomical absurdities, the braggart atrocities so
frequently admired in chansons de gestes and in various
utterances of the age of medieval chivalry. The tiresome
minuteness of Homer has always the merit of accuracy and
truth. Competent judges in matters medical have pro
nounced Homer a marvel of clearness and precision. That
his account should be trustworthy was absolutely required
by his hearers. They had a personal knowledge in the
matters whereof he sang, and demanded of him not simply
such precision as they could attain themselves, but hoped
no doubt also to glean from his descriptions hints for future
combat. They knew anatomy chiefly that they might, when
fighting, put in each blow where it would do the utmost
harm. They wished to kill rather than to cure ; and yet,
like the heroes in whose life the poet mirrored their own,
they had some knowledge of surgery enough to help a
wounded comrade in danger of his life.
With the incentive supplied by a breathlessly interested
audience it is not surprising that Homer, or the Homeric
bards, should have been extraordinarily painstaking in
matters anatomical. Among scores of wounds described by
him, -only seven, it is said, 1 are given so vaguely that the
skilled anatomist cannot determine very nearly where, and
in some degree also how serious, a wound is meant. As
for the defects in Homer s anatomy they are few, and such
as may more fairly be cloaked with the poet s mantle than
1 For a competent specialist s account of the facts upon which this
appreciation of Homeric anatomy, surgery, and medicine is based, see
Charles Daremberg in the Revue Archeologique for September, October,
and November, 1865. " Etudes d arche"ologie me dicale sur Homere."
228 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
the shortcomings discoverable in Ariiadis de Gaule, or even
in our own Spenser s Faery Queene.
The same detailed knowledge of anatomy which Homer
possessed, and which was possessed by his most critical
audiences, is very naturally attributed to his great heroes.
To be convinced of this, hear Odysseus when a desperate
situation prompts the thought of suicide. He does not think
vaguely of self-destruction, he knows the exact and most
vulnerable spot where he will strike himself ; and it is the
same when he has the giant Polyphemus in drunken sleep
before him. You can fancy a warrior of Homer s day
teaching his son by Odysseus example the duty of knowing
the human frame in every least detail. You can fancy the
same anxious father taking the miserable case of Pandarus
to bring home to his boy the fatal consequences of incom
petence and inaccuracy. Foolish Pandarus thought that a
mere shoulder-wound inflicted by his arrow on Diomede
had killed him, and not brought him merely to a faint.
Therefore the reappearance of Diomede, after recovery, so
unmans this ignorant would-be slayer that he loses nerve and
is slaughtered ignominiously.
A second and strong impulse to this minute anatomical
knowledge of Homer s day was, as already said, the need
of such knowledge to succour a wounded comrade. This
further involved a rough knowledge of surgical aids and of
certain simple remedies. A good man of war, a real hero,
was bound to know the surgery of his day. Rough and
rudimentary as this was, it involved a knowledge of bandag
ing, the respectability of which is proved from early pictures
representing the process. Combined with this heroic surgery
was a certain familiarity with drugs. Powdered herbs, for
instance, were used to staunch the flowing blood, and also
vi THE DEBT OF DEMOCEDES TO HOMER 229
to ease pain. It may in fact be said most truly that the
reader of Homer, to be ideally qualified, so far as medicine
is concerned, must know anatomy rather well, should have
seen some simple processes of surgery, and should know the
medical properties of several common herbs.
Thus it gradually grows plain that the anatomy of Homer
had a very considerable bearing on the subsequent develop
ment of medicine. To the Homeric infatuation for minutely
clear accounts of the give and take of sword-thrusts, spear-
thrusts, arrow-wounds, and of all the awful bruises, fractures,
and contusions caused by such jagged stones as still cover
the fields of Greece, modern science owes tools without
which its early course would have been hampered and its
vision constantly befogged. The Homeric heroes won
more than their own victories where they fought and con
quered with such desperate skill ; they won a victory for us
as well. They fought strenuously that we might think
clearly, since a vast proportion of the anatomical terms in
scientific use to-day are words whose meaning became de
finite as those heroes grew more skilful in fighting, and
learned to use their weapons with a deadlier knowledge.
The chief inheritors of the almost scientific and wholly
unmiraculous surgery and surgical skill of the Homeric age
were professional doctors, such as those who competed at
Aegina and Athens with the skilful Democedes. These
men, often in the employ of the state, made possible, and
kept in successful operation, large public establishments
which really deserved the name of hospitals. 1
This must be insisted upon, because there is a growing
danger of calling by the name of hospitals institutions
1 On this difficult question see Dr. Vercoutre, " La mddecine publique
dans I antiquite" grecque," in the Revue Archtologique, 1880.
230 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
which, in spite of certain resemblances to hospitals, have a very
different character the temples of Aesculapius. A sever
ance, gradually indeed but very early, took place between
secular and Aesculapian healing. It is not easy to recognise
this fact, because anciently there never was in any field,
least of all in the field of ancient medicine, the modern
antagonism between science and religion. Let those who
wilfully misinterpret the past in order the more completely
to misunderstand the present say that this was so because
science was unscientific, or because religion was an empty
show. The fact remains that, in spite of the severance
above-mentioned, the doctors kept in touch with the worship
of Aesculapius, and the priests in his temples did not
scorn such secular knowledge as they could gain from lay
practitioners.
Perhaps the difference in temper between these two
schools, if the word school may be so far misused, is best
understood by a backward glance. Let us again apply to
Homer and forgetting this time that he had facts to deal
with let us ask him for fancies. In contrast to what I have
said concerning the definite knowledge implied by the
Homeric anatomy, there was a fairy-land in the medical
world of the heroic age, and within its borders ruled a
spirit which knew not accuracy, and was but faintly and
distantly acquainted with facts. The two sons of the
noble leech Aesculapius, named Machaon and Podalirius,
together with an unspecified number of doctors, not only
had in a more perfect degree the knowledge of anatomy
which the Homeric heroes possessed, but also a general
claim to infallibility was popularly made for them. They
were, as has been abundantly shown, surrounded by a defer
ence not shown to ordinary men. A superstitious regard
vi THE SCHOOLING OF AESCULAPIUS 231
for Aesculapius and his two sons allied itself to a child-like
belief in the existence of miracle-working drugs. These
drugs were either, like the moly given by Hermes to
Odysseus, procurable only by an immortal god, or, like
Helen s Egyptian nepenthe^ they came from some far-off and
unvisitable place. Just so it was with the miraculous lotus
blossom. Such too were the herbs of marvellous and
uncanny effect known to Circe and Medea, who both had
learned of them from their father Aee tes, to whom the
knowledge descended from his father the Sun. From
Paean (who came later to be identified with the Sun and
Apollo) were descended, so Homer says, the Egyptians, and
all Egyptians had wonderful knowledge of herbs. Aescu
lapius himself was, as his worshippers finally agreed, the
offspring of Apollo, who was Helios, this same Paean, the
sun-god. One more touch of Homer s must here be men
tioned. His Aesculapius, although Apollo is his father and
protector, had Coronis, a mortal maiden, for his mother,
and had to gain by mortal means his more than mortal
skill in medicine. This brings us to a whole cycle of early
legends, touched upon more or less fully by Homer, where
medicine becomes further involved in the mists of uncertain
mythology and early superstition.
The schooling of Aesculapius in medicine was not different
from that of many other heroes. The master common to
them all was Chiron, in whose nature the irrepressible bestial
ity of his fellow-centaurs has been transformed into a wise and
genial power of sympathy. The gentle Chiron possessed a
power of insight into nature, was so at one with the hearts
of men and beasts, that although by nature he was below,
by knowledge he was above mere human kind. Chiron s
strange name and nature, half human and half of lower origin,
232 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
may stand as a link between the spirit of man and the useful
essence of plants, just as the lower animals connect man s
bodily frame with the shapes of the vegetable kingdom. 1
Chiron embodied for the Homeric understanding what we
prefer, after our more abstract fashion, to call the earliest of
all early stages of medicine. This prehistoric medicine
consisted of a well-defined though superficial knowledge
of the human frame, by no means equal to that which may
fairly be attributed to Odysseus, and of a limited acquaint
ance with nature s most obvious simples. So far as this
last point is concerned, Chiron embodied all the knowledge
of Homeric days, which was by no means incompatible with
that superstitious belief in the efficacy of certain unpro
curable roots and herbs of which Homer is full, and the
like of which survives to-day in various tales of the mad-dog
stone. This skill of Chiron the centaur in the medicine of
herbs is medicine reduced to its simplest terms, and in
this were versed those who bore the greatest names upon
the Heroic roll of honour Aesculapius and Amphiaraus,
the Boeotian Aesculapius about whom much has been
recently discovered at Oropus in Attica, Achilles and
Theseus, Jason and Aeneas, Castor and Pollux, Nestor and
Odysseus, Peleus, Telamon, Meleager, and many others.
Hence it is that all of them are spoken of as pupils of
Chiron.
The fact that Aesculapius, although under the especial
1 Just here the distinction, much insisted upon above, stands within
the danger of confusion and threatens to break down, for Chiron ends by
representing the reasonable and unmiraculous aspect of early medical lore.
We find in the fantastic centaur a spirit of serene science and right reason
which defies every attempt to draw a sharp line dividing the fanciful and
fairy-like from the positive and practical in Homer s poetical account
of heroic medicine. Here in a new case we feel the incommunicable
charm and subtle creative power of Greek fancy.
vi EARLY GREEK MEDICINE 233
favour of the god of healing, was yet classed among the other
illustrious pupils of Chiron, shows that the Homeric age
was hardly more appreciative of the divinity of Aesculapius
than of the divine character and importance of Demeter and
Dionysus. Aesculapius and his sons are thought of by
Homer as divinely perfected men leeches whose skill is
human, though of an excellence all but divine. Plainly this
Homeric Aesculapius is not the great god of the Thessalian
Lapithae and Phlegyae. Only an echo of his power and
helpful kindness reached the early Greeks, sounding through
the Iliad and the Odyssey. In order that the divine pre
tensions of Aesculapius might ally themselves to the gentler
and more human aspect which he wears in Homeric story,
a radical change was required. All this is brought to pass
in the story of the birth of the god at Epidaurus, where
Coronis, a daughter of the Thessalian king Phlegyas,
brought him to birth. The accident of Phlegyas tem
porary sojourn in Argolis and Epidaurus, so the Epidaurian
legend runs, made Aesculapius an Epidaurian; but upon
this accident his latter-day majesty depends.
But, before pursuing this Epidaurian theme, let us
summarise the early course of medicine in Greece. Even
in Homer s account, where the whole field of medicine is
small, and where there are no clear subdivisions, certain
divergent tendencies may be dimly distinguished. There is
the positive practical tendency, and this is perhaps the pre
ponderating one. There is also the poetically superstitious
tendency, which shows itself in tales of marvellous cures by
Aesculapius and others, of wonderful drugs procured by
heroes under the especial protection of heaven, and of
wonderful skill and knowledge possessed and taught by
Chiron. From the former and more positive tendency
234 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
sprang Greek anatomy and surgery, the medicine of Demo-
cedes, Hippocrates, and the school that sprang up under the
shadow of the Coan sanctuary, together with a fair propor
tion of the sayings and doings of conscientious priests in the
sanctuaries of Aesculapius scattered over Greece. From the
less positive and more superstitious aspect of medicine as
known in early legends, Homeric and others, nothing per
haps would have come without the help of the Thessalian
deification of Aesculapius. When the Thessalian cult of
the god of healing came into contact with the conceptions
of medicine embodied in the Iliad, it apparently exercised
little or no influence upon the positive, but absorbed into
itself the vague and the miraculous. All the wondering
terror with which Chiron s skill, Circe s sorcery, and Medea s
knowledge of simples had been regarded was soon garnered
into the treasure-houses of Aesculapius. His temples
became centres of miracles, as well as places for the practical
study of medicine. Of course there was this latter side to
the worship of Aesculapius, or else Hippocrates would not
have spoken as he did, and in later days Galen would not
have had such close commerce with the priests of Aescu
lapius. Indeed, superstitious as the worship of Aesculapius
was, the most irrefutable proof that it was neither wholly
nor intolerably so is the more than toleration of it by the
most admirable men of Greek and Roman medicine.
There is one point of view common to the most mar
vellous of Homer s fairy tales, to the practice of medicine
by the priests of Aesculapius, and to certain most and
least approved aspects of modern medical procedure.
This is the notion of affecting the mind through the body.
That wonder-working Egyptian drug, Helen s nepenthe, and
also the fatal flower of the lotus, cast a spell upon the mind.
vi MIND AND BODY 235
In like manner, after the worship of Aesculapius had run
its course through centuries and reached its final, perhaps
its most useful, form in the days of Galen and the Antonines,
this same belief was most vigorous. " It was an age of
valetudinarians," says a competent authority, "in many
cases of imaginary ones; but below its various crazes concern
ing health and disease ... lay a valuable, because partly
practicable, belief that all the maladies of the soul might be
reached through the subtle gateways of the body." 1 The
man who understood drugs was, in Homer s day, and during
the age of the Antonines, as he is now, a healer of all
curable illnesses whether of body or mind. Then as now
power through the body over the mind was attributed to
him.
The priests of Aesculapius, however, were far from taking
a materialistic view of the soul. They supplemented the
notion that an unsound mind can be cured through the
body by another to which they attached every importance, i.e.
that the sound mind can and should completely control the
sound body. The prescriptions of Aesculapius were some
times given to the purified and expectant sufferer in dreams.
Often Aesculapius himself appeared in a dream and touched
the sick ; sometimes a messenger came, a voice as it were
through the gateways of sleep would tell what herb or what
treatment was necessary. Sometimes healing came from
the nocturnal touch of serpents or of dogs sent by the god
to his suppliants.
The prescribed process by which the possibility of
dreaming an inspired dream was attained was one which
1 Marius the Epicurean, by Walter Pater, M. A., chap. iii. The whole
of this admirable chapter well repays careful study. I know no other
adequate modern presentation of the sweetness and sanctity of the service
of Aesculapius.
236 A ESCULAP1 US A T EPIDA UR US AND A THENS v i
necessarily stilled the mental alarms of the sufferer. His
condition had to be one of passivity, such as doctors some
times impose upon those who suffer from nervous prostration.
Not in a moment of excitement, but during the calm hours
of unstirred sleep came these divine dreams. They might
visit men anywhere, but for the most part they came only in
the hallowed seclusion of the Aesculapian Sanctuary. Since
all who were at the point of death and of child-birth were
rigorously excluded, panics and excitements were the less
possible ; the patient had to conform to the law of purification
prescribed in the temple, and then to lie down within the
temple itself or a porch l near by, and within the precinct.
This process of lying down in the temple for the purpose of
dreaming gets itself called by a Latin name which means
literally sleeping in, and we hear much of the practice of
Incubation in the ancient temples of Aesculapius. Men of
pious minds resorted to it in order to hatch out dreams
whereby knowledge of needful remedies came to them.
The dream was more or less consciously thought of as
having a being apart, like the dream in the Iliad sent by
Zeus to Agamemnon, only the dream in the temple of
Aesculapius came to enlighten, not to deceive. What such
dreams were supposed by the pious to accomplish is best
shown by the prayer which Aristides addressed to them.
" Endue my body," prays the grateful worshipper of dreams,
" with such measure of health as may suffice it for the obeying
of the spirit, that I may pass the day unhindered and in quiet
ness." 2 The body was cured in order that through it the
spirit might gain self-command and rule the whole man.
1 The word stoa or portions is strictly required. Neither of these being
English, I have preferred to stretch the meaning of the word porch.
2 Mr. Pater s translation.
vi HARMONY OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE 237
I have said that Greek secular medicine sprang from the
more positive and surgical side of the earliest pursuit of
medicine. I have also said that all the extravagances and
miracles believed in from the earliest days centred gradually
around the worship of Aesculapius. But in fact the line
between secular and sacred is hardly more easy to draw
for these later days than for Homeric times. Surgery, of
all things, ought to have been the exclusive province of the
secular practitioners, and yet inscriptions 1 found at Epidaurus
within the precinct of Aesculapius show that operations were
sometimes performed by the servants of the god and under
his inspiration, though, to be sure, the particular cases there
described would appear to have been most unsurgically
dealt with. On the other hand, if the distinction in question
is pressed too far, or too sharply drawn, a secular practitioner
like Herophilus ought to have been quite free from the
Homeric point of view about the superhuman efficacy of
drugs. And yet this Herophilus, a celebrated physician
who flourished during the first years of the third century
B.C., speaks of all medicines as gifts from the gods, and calls
them, when rightly used, "the hands of the gods." * This
appeal to the healing hands of the gods in everyday
practice is a beautifully enlightened modification of Homer s
1 The best concise account of these inscriptions known to me is Dr. Mer-
riam s referred to below. Their discovery and elucidation is one of the first
of the useful achievements of the distinguished M. Kabbadias, Ephor-in-
chief of Antiquities. Strabo speaks of them, and adds that similar ones
were to be found at Cos and Tricca : i. e. inscriptions that give record of
the manner of each cure, VIII. vi. 16, p. 375.
- See the first sentence of the dedication addressed by Scribonius
Largus to Caius Julius Callistus. Compare the use of this quotation by
Erasmus in his ingenious comparison of the Gospel of St. Luke to a healing
medicine. This is in the dedication of his paraphrase of that Gospel, and
contrast the sense attached to an analogous expression in the Philoctetes of
Sophocles : speaking of Philoctetes writhing with pain, the chorus cries out
w TraXd/icu deuv (177).
238 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
notion that the root moly could only be digged from its
secret hiding place by a god. And indeed this utterance
of Herophilus was quite in agreement with the view of
Hippocrates, who said long before the day of Herophilus,
with reference to divine intervention and healing, " Medicine
inclines to do honour to the gods as concerning symptoms
or sickness, and doctors give way before them, since medical
lore has no superabundance of power." *
And yet this harmony between science and religion, this
pious deference of physicians to the god of physic and their
respect for the miracles worked in his name, left a difficult
question for the decision of laymen. When should there
be appeal to the god and his divine skill, and when should
the counsel of human doctors be resorted to ? The doctrine
of Socrates may well be taken to represent the mind of the
most enlightened men. " Seek as far as you may to help
yourself before asking the gods for help and counsel." This
was the view of Socrates about consulting oracles in general,
and no doubt he would have applied it to the most
primitive and wide - spread of all Greek ways of consult
ing oracles, the dreaming of dreams in the sanctuary of
Aesculapius, as well as to other appeals to Aesculapian skill.
"Exhaust human skill and resource before appealing to
the god," he would have said. Theoretically this view of
1 See the sixth paragraph of the treatise on professional honour (jrepl
tvff-XyfJ-offtivqs}. This treatise is by some considered, though on purely
negative grounds, of doubtful authorship. I am convinced with Darem-
berg that it is by Hippocrates ; some doctor certainly wrote it, and
it certainly represents a typical point of view. This spirit of pious de
ference to divine power is by no means confined to one treatise of
Hippocrates. There is a solitary quotation upon which the ingenious
Wilamovitz - Moellendorf founds his otherwise baseless assertion that
Hippocrates was free from any belief in Aesculapius. The passage occurs
in the treatise on airs, waters, and climates, and is a protest against a
gross Scythian superstition. Moellendorf s very strained reading of it can
be refuted by other undoubted sayings of Hippocrates.
vi AESCULAPIUS A FRIEND OF MAN 239
duty was above reproach, but practice was another matter.
Many motives led the faithful to consult Aesculapius more
frequently than this principle, strictly adhered to, would
allow ; and among them the most decisive one was his
approachability. A feeling of familar comradeship was
inspired in all his worshippers by Aesculapius, and in this
Socrates certainly shared, since his dying words were : "Crito,
we owe a cock to Aesculapius." The meaning of this
solemnly smiling farewell of Socrates would seem to be that
to Aesculapius, a god who always is prescribing potions and
whose power is manifest in their effects, was due that
most welcome and sovereign remedy which cured all the
pains and ended all the woes of Socrates the hemlock,
which cured him of life which is death, and gave him the
glorious realities of hereafter. For this great boon of
awakening into real life Socrates owed Aesculapius a thank-
offering. This offering of a cock to Aesculapius was
plainly intended for him as the awakener of the dead to
life everlasting.
In the story which makes Aesculapius incur the wrath of
Zeus in order to recall to life one who was dead, and further,
in the minds of all worshippers, this god standing before
Zeus as divine yet also human is, like Prometheus, a loving
and indulgent friend of man even when other deities frown.
Apollo intercedes for him with angered Zeus much as he
might for a man. Something of the mortality attributed to
him in the Homeric poems, a half- humanity, clung to
Aesculapius throughout antiquity; and the latter Greeks
never quite banished from their worship of this god the
notion that he was a hero or demigod only. How natural
it was in Athens to think of a healing power under this
aspect is shown by the dim knowledge that we have of an
240 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
Athenian temple dedicated, not to Aesculapius, but to the
" Hero physician." Even after his full divinity came into
general recognition, therefore, Aesculapius bore marks of
his previous condition. He was worshipped and besought
not always under the name of a god, but most frequently
under the designation, familiar to Christian ears, of the
Son of God. Filius dei was in fact the habitual and un
qualified manner of addressing Aesculapius in his temples
at Rome. Partly human of birth, he was wholly so in
sympathy ; but, in his perfect power to help and heal, he
was divine.
This halo of humanity, if the expression be allowed,
was worn by Aesculapius with all the better grace because
he was by no means foremost in the Olympian hierarchy
since our minds condemn us to talk of a hierarchy when
there was none. The god of healing, with all his train of
abundant divinities, Health, Panacea, Convalescence (Teles-
phorus), and the many others, kindly presences all of them,
called into being solely to ease men s pain, may be thought
of as dwelling somewhere midway between the gods above
and men below. There they dwelt in order perhaps to
be near at hand when the calamities of men required their
instant aid. So human were the beginnings of Aesculapius
that he depended upon the power and presence in Olympus
of Apollo his father. Just as we may imagine, if we
choose, that Aesculapius was the vicar of Apollo on earth
to represent him at the Eleusinian Mysteries, so we know
that Apollo was the heavenly presence whose Olympian
power sustained and increased the divine efficacy of all the
works of his son Aesculapius. The words filius dei apply
to Aesculapius as the son of Apollo the god.
" Save me, and heal my grievous gout, O blessed and
vi THE SON OF APOLLO 241
most mighty presence, I adjure thee by thy father, to whom
I loudly pray." Such is the prayer addressed to Aesculapius,
"Son of Leto s son," by Diophantus, an attendant at his
shrine, which has been lately uncovered on the southern
slope of the Athenian Acropolis. This inscribed prayer is
that of Diophantus born in the Athenian township of
Sphettus. Its faults are many in versification, and it lacks
poetic delicacy of phrase, but still Diophantus having been
an attendant in the Athenian temple of Aesculapius it pre
serves for us an official view of the relation between
Aesculapius the divine son and the divine father Apollo.
In their eyes a prayer to Aesculapius was also a prayer
to Apollo, and the god of healing was thought of by them
as a pitiful and indulgent mediator between man and
the Holiest and Mightiest. " No one of mortals," Diophantus
continues in this same inscription, " can give a surcease from
such pangs. Thou alone, divinely blessed one, hast the
power ; for the supreme gods bestowed on thee, all pitying
one, a rich gift for mortals. Thou art their appointed
deliverer from pain." 1 Thus Aesculapius was not mortal
though he was under inspiration from above he was the
well-beloved saviour from suffering, the comforter sent by
Apollo.
A curiously close relation between Apollo the father and
the son Aesculapius is shown by the Apolline epithet Paean
1 See in the May number of Gaillard s Medical Journal (vol. xi. No. 5),
published in New York, an article on " Aesculapia as revealed by In
scriptions," recast from a paper read before the New York Academy of
Medicine, igth March 1885, by Augustus C. Merriam, A.M., Ph.D.
Professor Merriam has there given the most concise account of all the
facts bearing upon the worship of Aesculapius at Athens and at Epidaurus,
and his account of the inscriptions is not only exhaustive but most enter
taining. He also gives abundant references to more detailed accounts of
the matter in hand.
242 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
which this same Diophantus bestows upon Aesculapius in
his record, made in the same place, of thanks for recovery.
He thanks " Paean Aesculapius," to whose skill he attri
butes his deliverance. This consummation devoutly to be
desired was promised him by Aesculapius, who appeared in
a dream. This whole episode in Diophantus life is a most
authentic and imperishable record, kept upon stone, of the
mediating and human divinity of Aesculapius, who trans
mitted the kindly will of Apollo to suffering men, and lent
them the means of grace. It may truly be said of this god
of healing that he and his father are one, for even the
dreams wherein Aesculapius himself appeared and wrought
cure were addressed as the " children of Apollo." " Oh, ye
children of Apollo, who in times past have stilled the waves
of sorrow for many people, and lighted up a lamp of safety
before those who travel by sea and land, be pleased in your
great condescension ... to accept this prayer . . ." l So
opens the collect of Aristides already alluded to. The
final source of power is Apollo; and the accomplishment
of cure, no matter what natural means and medicines are
employed, is at the bidding of Aesculapius, whose loving-
kindness miraculously brings healing. Often, therefore, he
was looked upon as a patron saint might be. He was a
mediator and an elder brother a being close to the divinity,
with whom the worshipper need not always be on terms of
the most ceremonious observance.
This nearness to man involved what we might call
humility in some sort, or self-subordination in regard to the
other gods ; but both of these terms are far too exclusively
modern to be used very strictly of any Greek divinity.
Aesculapius was not a jealous god, and when his holy pre-
1 Mr. Pater s translation.
vi THE HIE RON OF EPIDAURUS 243
cinct was set apart near to the ancient places of worship
sacred to other and older gods, there was not room perhaps
for showing him all due honour. Therefore Aesculapius,
more than most of the gods in Greece, required for his
cult a district all his own a country sacred to him, where
his worship should be the centre of religious and also of
social life. Such a country, dedicated to his worship, was
the district of Epidaurus.
On the eastern coast of Argolis, full in view from the
islands of Salamis and Aegina, over against Athens and the
Piraeus, lies the town of Epidaurus, with the volcanic and
picturesque peninsula of Methana just to the south of it,
beyond a fertile seaward plain. This plain and the
mountain heights beyond it form the district of Epidaurus.
In the town itself were minor sanctuaries of the god not
only a temple for himself, but one for his wife, Gentleheart
or Epione they called her ; but beyond this name, and the
existence of her Epidaurian temple, which disappeared with
the town of Epidaurus, little more is known about her.
Fortunately it is otherwise with the great centre of all
Aesculapian worship in antiquity the Epidaurian Hieron
or Holy ground. This lies higher up and farther inland
than the town of Epione s shrine. From this Hieron of
Epidaurus went forth to the east and west those who
established the great centres of Aesculapian worship else
where. They claimed to have founded the Coan * temple,
near which Hippocrates was born, and the sanctuary sacred
1 Some sort of Aesculapian worship at Cos, of an earlier date than any
possible foundation from Epidaurus, must be allowed. Indeed, success
and pre-eminence at a comparatively late date probably made the Epi-
daurians claim to have founded various temples quite as old as their own.
The Eleusinians certainly claimed the same sort of precedence over
Peloponnesian shrines of less note than theirs, but of equal or greater
antiquity.
244 AESCULAPIUS AT EP1DAURUS AND ATHENS vi
to Aesculapius on the island in the Tiber at Rome certainly
derived from them.
Suppose we have landed at ancient Epidaurus and are
bound for this beautiful upland health resort. First our
course lies southward till, at half a mile s distance, the
inland road turns to cross the fertile but narrow Epidaurian
plain, which is about a quarter of a mile in width. The way
then follows a mountain torrent for a time, and goes inland
two miles and more. Here at a crossways the pilgrim to
the shrine of Aesculapius leaves the high road to ascend the
side and cross the shoulder of Mount Titthion. Two
downward miles, and you are at last on consecrated ground.
A semicircle of gentle and, for those parts, well-wooded
slopes hems in the Hieron to the northward, the southward,
and the eastward, while towards the north-west the valley
leans downward into a wider valley, through which extends
the carriage-road that goes to Nauplia. 1
The Epidaurian birth-legend of Aesculapius has already
been alluded to. When her father, the Thessalian King
Phlegyas, visited Epidaurus to spy out the land with a view
to conquest, Coronis was with him. She, fearing discovery by
him when her time came, caused the new-born babe Aescu
lapius, her son by Apollo, to be exposed on the upland slopes
of Mount Titthion. The existence of this babe remained
unknown of Phlegyas, and would perhaps long have been
unheard of, had it not been for what befell a mountain-
ranging shepherd, just when the babe was exposed. This
shepherd missed a faithful dog and also one of his flock.
Aresthanas for such was the shepherd s name hastened
to make thorough search, and after wandering through
many mountain places, found the missing goat giving
1 The usual approach is by this excellent road.
vi FINDING OF THE INFANT GOD 245
sustenance to a new-born babe, while the faithful dog was
keeping careful guard over the two. To commemorate
this beautiful and miraculous episode the name of that
mountain became Titthion the mountain of the nursing-
goat.
When Aresthanas sought to lift up the babe a great light
streamed from it, as it were the flash of lightning. This
was a sign from Heaven ; therefore he left the infant god
where he had found him, not lifting him up nor bearing
him away. Soon the fame of this and other wonders that
followed it was noised abroad over land and sea, and people
knew that the infant Aesculapius was skilled in all manner
of devices for the sick, and most wonderful of all people
were made aware that in him was the miraculous power to
raise from the dead whomsoever he would.
This later story just given from Pausanias is very
different from Pindar s earlier one. When Pindar wrote,
Aesculapius had not yet definitely changed his abode, and
was still sometimes thought of as living in Thessaly. The
general course of events, as well as the names Phlegyas and
Coronis, are common to both stories, and prove them to be
one; but on the whole the earlier 1 one Pindar s, which
knows not Epidaurus but unfolds itself in Thessaly is the
more tragical. There was on the part of Coronis, whom Apollo
had wedded, a faithlessness so flagrant that it brought her
destruction. The righteous indignation of Apollo, whose
sister Artemis slew the guilty maid, made him forget the child
that was to be, until Coronis, not yet a mother though a
guilty spouse, lay stretched upon the flaming funeral pyre.
1 See the XVIth Homeric Hymn, where the Dotian plain of Thessaly is
given as Aesculapius birthplace. " To Asclepios, healer of sickness,
begins my song ; to Apollo s son, whom heavenly Coronis bare on the
Dotian plain, and she was Phlegyas daughter."
246 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
Snatched from the flames, Aesculapius is given to the care
of Chiron, of whom he learns the art of healing. Pindar s
tale keeps Aesculapius near to Tricca, his most ancient and
original place of worship, not far from Pyrasus, the earliest
and Thessalian abode of Demeter. Homer s account of
Aesculapius differs from both of the above legends in its
more matter-of-fact tone. The miracles are fewer in Homer s
version, but he agrees with Pindar in making Thessaly the
birthplace of the god. As before insisted upon, Homer s
Aesculapius was scarcely a god he was the hero who
came to parry and make unavailing the thrusts of all
manner of diseases.
Turning now from the god Aesculapius to his chief
dwelling place, from mythology to archaeology, let us go up
to his holy place in the valley overlooked by his Epidaurian
birthplace Mount Titthion, and also by Mount Cynortion,
sacred from of old to his father Apollo. Once arrived
there, we cannot fail to notice the health-giving purity of
the air and a kindly cheerful smile that meets us in the
landscape. But soon the most surprising, the only surpris
ing, feature in the landscape lays hold upon the eye and
engrosses the mind the theatre of Polycletus. Many ancient
theatres have been excavated in Greece, in Greater Greece,
and Grecian Asia Minor, but the Epidaurian theatre is the
most perfectly preserved and the most beautiful of them all.
This theatre of Dionysus, and also the exquisite and unique
Rotunda, which lies within the sacred enclosure of Aescu
lapius, are architectural masterpieces by Polycletus, a native
of Argolis, where Epidaurus lies. Although there were
two artists of this name, the elder and the younger, and
there has consequently been a discussion of the point, the
theatre and the Rotunda at Epidaurus are now generally
vi A PRECINCT OF AESCULAPIUS 247
credited to the younger Polycletus. Of the Rotunda I shall
presently speak. Of the theatre Pausanias declares his high
opinion: "Roman theatres may be finer," he says, "and
those of latter-day Greece may be larger, but still the Epi-
daurian masterpiece of Polycletus is peerless for harmony
of proportion and charm of aspect." l
From various sources, but chiefly from the minute pains
given to results of excavation at Epidaurus and Athens, it
appears that certain features characterised any and every
precinct of Aesculapius in the days when his worship was
finally organised. First a small temple for the god himself
to dwell in was required. Aesculapius was too generously
scrupulous about any curtailment of comfort for the sick
who resorted to him ever to require a large temple for
himself. In this modest building was the statue of the
god, and there were hung or disposed in some satisfactory
way the smaller and more valuable votive offerings made to
him by grateful convalescents. The one thing needful was
room for long and commodious porches with the right
1 It was not accident which grouped together on the Athenian Acropolis
as well as in the Hieron at Epidaurus the temple of Aesculapius and the
theatre of Dionysus. Convenience certainly had something to do with it,
and at Athens the comfort of the sick required just the exposure of the
theatre. Moreover, the inspiration and amusement afforded to invalids
by ready access to theatrical performances were numbered among their
curative resources by the priests of Aesculapius. The well-known case of
Aristides leaves no doubt on this point. Still, beyond these more prosaic
reasons religious ones might be assigned. Aesculapius and Dionysus
were associated in ritual by their connection with the Greater Mysteries at
Eleusis. Their common origin in the northward regions of Thessaly and
Thrace left its mark in certain touches common to the legends of their
birth. There was, furthermore, a part assigned to the god Aesculapius in
the festivals of Dionysus. What this was can only be guessed. Perhaps
it may have connection with a need for Aesculapius, the upraiser of the
dead to life ; for Dionysus, typifying by his yearly death the winter of each
year, had to be quickened every spring, and thus could profit by the near
presence of the healing god, the well-beloved son of his brother and ally,
Apollo.
248 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
exposure. In these the wards of Aesculapius were housed.
There and in the temple too they slept, awaiting visits of
healing from the inspired dreams.
This feature is more clearly made out in the precinct at
Epidaurus than in the Athenian sanctuary, though both of
them certainly were amply provided with such accommoda
tion for patients. The capitals of the Epidaurian porches 1
were Ionic, those at Athens seem to have been Doric. The
Epidaurian porch was upwards of 120 feet long. The
length of the porches at Athens is not easy to make out,
since there appear to have been different buildings at
different times. The long porch at Epidaurus was really
two and not one. Though the two unite into one con
tinuous stretch, one has a lower story which is absent from
the other. This is largely due to a clever use of the natural
slope of the ground. Both at Athens and at Epidaurus the
god could, for the purpose of visitation by night, emerge
from his temple and immediately find his expectant sup
pliants sleeping in the porch close by.
The temple at Athens has not been clearly made out.
There seem to have been two temples not now easy to
disentangle and attribute rightly to the right period for the
building of each. Both were small ; of that little we may
be perfectly sure. The temple at Epidaurus was about
eighty feet long and upwards of forty feet in width. It was
of the Doric order, and fine fragments of its sculptured
ornamentations are preserved in the museum, a farm-house
close to the theatre of Dionysus. There was apparently a
very fine frieze of lions heads upon it, much like the one
which we shall find upon the Rotunda near by. The
1 Here again I am using the word porch to describe a stoa or porticus ;
in fact I plead guilty to doing this throughout this chapter and elsewhere.
vi THE STATUE OF IVORY AND GOLD 249
eastern pediment contained a group representing the defeat
of the Amazons, while the western pediment was filled by
sculptures representing a Thessalian tale of the victory in
Thessaly by the Lapithae (near friends of Thessalian
Phlegyas) over the Centaurs. The three angles of the
gables were surmounted by delicate statues of victory,
whose more or less marred remains are visible now in the
Central Museum at Athens. Within was the great statue of
all-pitying Aesculapius wrought in ivory and gold by Thrasy-
medes. Of this statue coins were the only record until the
beautiful bas-reliefs of Epidaurus came to light. 1 His brow,
like that of Zeus, has all the serenity and unfathomable
peace that glows upon the noonday firmament in cloudless
summer time. There is no trace here of sternness ; all that
the face of Aesculapius discloses well behooves the gentle-
hearted husband of (Epione) Gentleheart. Aesculapius sits
not too majestic in benign repose. One upraised leg is
resting on the other, and he gazes with eyes overflowing
with health-giving wisdom not far away, and not upward
but forward as if kindly to entreat with welcome all those
who suffer and are heavy laden. To him let them confide
their woes, on him let them lay their burdens of suffering
and their forebodings of despair. He sits calm and most
divinely competent to counsel and to guide. This attitude
of reposeful capability was given to the god of healing on
many a tablet inscribed with grateful names, and bearing on
its sculptured surface a picture of the god at the moment
when offerings and supplications were made to him. Many
such have been found at Athens, and these votive bas-reliefs
form some of the most interesting features in the too little
1 See Brunn s beautiful photograph of the best of the two, Denkmiiler
der ant i ken Kunst.
250 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
frequented chamber on the Acropolis, which is devoted to
fragments from the Asclepieium at Athens.
With the exception of the Rotunda, a temple of Artemis
near the entrance was the only other important building in
the Epidaurian precinct. Dogs heads, which took the place
of the lions heads conspicuous on the temple of Aesculapius
and the invalids porch, ornamented the frieze of this temple
of Apollo s twin sister. This interesting detail suggests that
Artemis was here worshipped as huntress or, if you choose,
as mistress of the hounds. The temple of the god Aescu
lapius being small, that of Artemis was smaller still ; and as
little is known of it in detail, we may with a clear conscience
neglect it in order to devote attention to the most marvellous
building of them all the Rotunda or Tholos of the younger
Polycletus.
This remarkable structure was famous throughout anti
quity, for it was one of the most perfect examples of the
graceful and efflorescent style which came into favour after
the day of severely perfect architecture and sculpture. Its
round shape invited flowery ornament, and the genius of
the younger Polycletus showed itself here at its best. A
new delicacy and life was given to traditional forms of
ornamentation. They left the hand of Polycletus so
quickened and transformed that they seem to have come
to him fresh from the flowering meadows. He took the
massive Doric column and lent to it for his purpose a deli
cate outline, while he preserved the significance and charm
of modulated curves in its capital. Such was the external
circle of columns which he placed upon triple steps of
ascent. Thus we have a less massive seeming basement
than the three steps of the stylobate of the Parthenon, three
concentric circles, two within and one at the outermost
vi THE THOLOS OF POLYCLETUS THE YOUNGER 251
verge. Footed upon the innermost round of this triple
support a circle of twenty-six Doric columns arose to bear
the most beautiful of burdens an entablature composed of
three harmonious parts. First, and resting directly upon
the columns, came the architrave a smooth marble beam
running without interruption around the whole circum
ference. Resting upon this was the frieze, a very broad
band of alternating rosettes and triglyphs. The triple
vertical line in the triglyph framed most exquisitely the
square slabs, each bearing a central rosette. Rosettes have
been found on Mycenae vases, and are generally said to be
an inheritance from Assyria; they appear on Egyptian
monuments of the eighteenth dynasty. Still, in the hands
of the younger Polycletus, they appear as something new.
They seem to have been gathered by him from the fields of
Greece in the loveliest meadows of spring. There they still
grow to-day, and begem the tanglewood on every sheltered
slope with dots of pure and incandescent red. The shapely
form of that bright red anemone was commonly set upon
memorial slabs above funereal inscriptions, and now we find
it idealised and complicated but still the same simple flower-
form taken to be the heart and essence of the frieze in
Polycletus entablature. The third and crowning portion
of it, the last perfection surmounting this most exquisite of
buildings, was its cornice. This was a band with beautifully
sculptured lions heads surmounted by acroteria, which in
this case are flower-like points surmounting graceful leaf-like
curves.
Pass now between the Doric columns on the eastward
side where the doorway opened towards the temple of
Aesculapius. There the door pierces the cella-wall, and
beyond is the interior. The roof within was supported by
252 AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
fourteen of the most exquisite Corinthian columns that the
mind of man has ever dreamt of. From the same meadows
where grew the red anemones Polycletus took the delicate
daisy I have seen just such growing profusely upon the
battle-field of Marathon l and set it upon his capital above
the acanthus leaf. The curving tendrils, not too profusely
clustering around the summit of the column, seem with
gladsome upward swing to tempt the eye still on until the
delicate daisy crowns this creation woven together out of
the graceful spirit of grasses that wave in the field, of
tendrils that cling, and of flowers that bloom by the way
side. Here is the earliest existing and the best of all known
Corinthian capitals. 2
When the delicate grace of these exquisite architectural
blossoms gathered itself into final form before his mind,
Polycletus, the great architect, knew perhaps that Pausias 3
was to decorate the circle of its walls with paintings. Com
bining, perhaps for the first time, two great discoveries,
perspective and encaustic, which were partly his, Pausias
decorated the interior curves of the Rotunda with beautiful
1 See a most beautiful photograph of it taken by Mr. Elsey-Smith and
published by the Hellenic Society. A very beautiful enlargement of this
is most opportunely published in the Proceedings of the Royal Institute of
British Architects, vol. vi. New Series, 1890.
2 Of this, Mr. Francis C. Penrose writes, see p. 67 of the Proceedings re
ferred to in the preceding note. " To me the cap from Epidaurus is extremely
interesting, because it is very similar to the capitals of the columns of the
temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens a temple to which I have paid
much attention. The forms of the leaves of the two examples greatly re
semble one another, and the ornaments, namely, both the central flower
and that figure somewhat resembling a fleur-de-lis which occupies the
corner of the volute, have their counterparts in the central flowers of the
caps of the Athenian temple, and thoroughly confirm my opinion that
the columns of the latter are Greek and not Roman work."
3 Not Pausias but Pauson is unfavourably compared by Aristotle with
Polygnotus. His influence was the less pure because of his preoccupation
with technical matters, partly too because of the subjects which he chose.
vi THE PAINTING OF PA US I AS 253
pictures. One represented Eros, whose weapons were flung
away, while he grasped a lyre upon which he discoursed
sweet music ; another, of less high inspiration but most
celebrated for its technique, was his allegorical figure of
Methe or drunkenness. Like Benozzo Gozzoli, Pausias
excelled in the painting of children, little boys especially,
and none could rival his painting of flowers. Polycletus
had already framed this building out of the glowing shapeli
ness of anemones and the delicate loveliness of the pale
and golden daisies of the fields. Pausias, in the chaplet of
Eros, no doubt justified the words used of his skill by
Pliny, who says that " he brought the much practised art of
painting flower-garlands to the climax of harmonious varie
gation." Here then was the gist of his flower-like building
in a boy embowered with blossoms, who was in act of
choosing the better part music instead of mischief-making
arrows. The lyre is better far, since music charms the
highest, the deepest, and the inmost soul, and therefore
best symbolises Eros, the awakener of unstinting and ex-
haustless love.
But we have not exhausted the wonders of the Tholos.
The very centre of its beautifully tesselated floor had a
downward exit. Here was most artfully constructed a
labyrinth, traceable still in all its windings. These made it
necessary to pass forwards and backwards, going three times
completely around the circle before the lower door of the
exit could be reached. The use of this subterranean
labyrinth is no easier to make out than that of the whole
building. Some think the harmless snakes sacred to
Aesculapius had quarters here, and issued hence to play
their part in healing visions. But this is pure conjecture,
as is also the suggestion that the Tholos was built around
254 J ESCULA PIUS A T EPIDA UR US AND A THENS v i
a well or a spring whose healing waters have wholly dis
appeared.
Here is no room for speaking of the part in miraculous
cures played at Epidaurus by the venomless serpents which
still abound in those parts, and are made very prominent by
Aristophanes in his famous burlesque account of a night in the
Athenian sanctuary of Aesculapius. We cannot enter here
into the history of the serpent impostures practised by that
arch-mountebank Alexander of Abonotichus. The considera
tion of all the miracles commemorated by inscriptions at
Epidaurus, and of the trial which they were to the faith of
pious believers, would be too long. The distinction between
Roman and Greek Aesculapia, as well as the whole question
of the relation between sound practice and that of the priests
of Aesculapius, of Serapis, 1 and of a host of divinities who
sprang up in the latter days of paganism to cure all diseases,
must be left without discussion here. It is sufficient to know
that men of reasonable minds continued even in later days to
resort to the various shrines of healing, and frequently found
restoration and consolation by that means.
Pain of whatsoever kind moved the benign hero-physician,
the divine Aesculapius. His aid therefore was granted to
all those needing it if they only could receive it. The
possibility of receiving it depended in one sense not upon
1 Egypt, from which it is supposed many features of the earliest worship
of Aesculapius were borrowed, sent forth in later times the healing god
Serapis, a powerful rival to Aesculapius. How closely his original Egyptian
character clung to Serapis even in his shrine at Delos may be gathered from
an absurd story preserved by Aelian. We are told that Serapis granted
the restoration of an eye to a horse who was brought in distress to his
temple. The horse was of course a thoroughbred, and naturally made his
appearance in the temple with thankofferings. This last touch recalls the
sayings and doings of the deathless steeds of Achilles, and the whole
episode, like the Homeric account of the wounding and fall of Nestor s
horse, is based upon a commiseration for suffering beasts which finds ex
pression in modern times more substantially but less poetically.
vi APOLLONIUS THE PURE 255
him at all but solely on them. They had to have faith,
and such faith that it blossomed into purity. The pre
liminary laving, usually in sea -water, required before
entering the porch to await the coming of inspired dreams,
symbolised outwardly the inner obedience of the faithful to
a command inscribed, as we well know, upon the doorway
of entrance to the Epidaurian sanctuary
" None but the pure shall enter here."
I have used the word faith because, in addition to purity,
there was a deeper tie involved, a personal compatibility
between the suppliant and the divinity supplicated : to be
healed by the god it was needful to be pleasing in his eyes,
otherwise he failed to appear.
Here was a religious idea capable of many abuses, but
useful and right for controlling the self-indulgent who stood
between themselves and health. An especial oracle from
the god could not intervene at every meal prescribing each
disobedient patient s meat and drink. For this duty as well
as for an example some one especially accredited by the
favour of the god and qualified by the rigour of his own
life was needed. Such a divinely chosen guide for the
weak and erring was young Apollonius of Tyana, 1 during
his monastic seclusion in the temple of Aesculapius at
Aegae. He was especially called to the Pythagorean life
and discipline, his revival of which begins with his recourse
to Aesculapius and his rejection of the teachings of Epi
curus. " Wouldst thou but talk with Apollonius, thy relief
is sure," said the oracle at Aegae to an unruly and self-
indulgent youth whose much eating and drinking prevented
his cure.
1 See Appendix IV.
256 AESCULAPIUS A 7" EPIDAURUS AND ATHENS vi
This idea of the necessity of some one whose life should
be purity incarnate, and who should intercede with Aescu
lapius (himself thought of in Homeric days as an inter
cessor), became more prominent, and one of the very last
glimpses given us of the persistent worship of Aesculapius
upon the Athenian Acropolis is in the life of Proclus, of
whom we hear as one of those holy men whose intervention
was all-powerful with the god of healing.
Thus as we bid farewell to Aesculapius he seems himself
in act of bidding farewell to earth and is withdrawing him
self from men to the far-off dwellings of the careless
Olympian gods.
APPENDIX IV
APOLLONIUS OF TYANA
THIS Tyanaean master of miracles attached his teachings
and his philosophy to Pythagoras a name to conjure by
and his miracles received a certain divine sanction from his
acceptableness in the eyes of Aesculapius. In his early
youth, at the age of sixteen, a sort of inner light irresistibly
prompted him to leave Tarsus and his first master who was
an Epicurean, and to resort to the temple of Aesculapius
at Aegae, a Cilician town not far away. Neither Tarsus
nor Aegae in fact was very far from Tyana of Cappadocia,
his birthplace. During four years Apollonius lived in a
monastic seclusion at Aegae, increasing in stature and in
favour with the god, loving with unspeakable love and
strictly living the ascetic Pythagorean life. An account of
these years was written by his contemporary, probably also
a sharer in his life of self-denial and self-devotion,
Maximus of Aegae.
The more adventurous and most miraculous career of
Apollonius upon his travels, and during his trial, was
chronicled in rough notes by his companion Damis the
Ninivite, a remarkably credulous person, who seems in
vented for the purpose of believing more than the utter
most possible. The Grammar of this Ninivite s Assent in
deed makes exceptions into rules, and leaves nothing that
can surprise except the normal and natural course of events.
258 APPENDIX IV
A third account of Apollonius was written contemporarily
by Moeragenes. Possibly this was the same Moeragenes
who figures as ah Athenian elsewhere, 1 but whoever he
was, he wrote in four books a life of Apollonius of Tyana.
These four books of Moeragenes were read 2 by that great
champion of Christianity against Paganism, Origen, and his
estimate of the Tyanaean ascetic and worker of miracles
was evidently derived from them.
So far I have named writers on the career of Apollonius
whose books have perished. The book which has not
perished is that of a fourth biographer who, unlike
Maximus, Damis, and Moeragenes, was not a contem
porary. His name was Philostratus, and he has most aptly
been called "Romancer -in -ordinary" 3 to her Imperial
Majesty Julia Domna. When he had culled marvellous
incidents from Maximus, and gathered in romantic ad
ventures and incredible miracles from Damis, Philostratus
found the narrative of Moeragenes full of wonders though
it apparently was too tame, and therefore, choosing to think
that it betrayed ignorance of his hero, he neglected the
best material at hand. 4 In place of this he added to what
was already untrustworthy popular rumours and traditional
records of miracles a mass of mythology which had
gathered around Apollonius during the century separating
his death from the day of Philostratus and his protectress,
the Empress Julia. Among these tales were no doubt
many, if not all, of the features which Philostratus work has
in common with the four Gospels and the career of St.
Paul as set forth in the Acts of the Apostles. That nothing
might be lacking, Philostratus contrived to use in one way
or another various favourite passages of his borrowed from
1 Pseudo- Plutarch, Quaest. Conv. book iv. end. It is to be hoped that
he is no kinsman of the bandit Moeragenes who ranged the Taurus a few
generations before. Cf. Cic. Ad Att. v. 15 and vi. i.
2 Origen, Con. Cels. vi. 41.
3 Essays and Studies, by B. L. Gildersleeve.
4 E. Miiller, Eine culturhistorische Untersuchung.
APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 259
Xenophon, 1 an author upon whom he formed his style,
and to adorn the already overloaded travellers tales of
Damis with elegant extracts from such records of history
and travel as were accessible to him. He is evidently
indebted here and there to Lucian s True Story, a charming
caricature of the marvellous-absurd yarns which had so long
a vogue at Rome. The way in which this last indebtedness
is contracted abundantly convicts Philostratus of an utter
lack of humour. Indeed this weakness is the pith and
marrow of the whole biography, as may most agreeably be
revealed to readers of the delightfully humorous summary
of the work given by Professor Gildersleeve in his essay on
" Apollonius of Tyana."
Philostratus was not called to the office of writing the
" Evangel of Apollonius " by an inner light, as Apollonius
was to the Pythagorean way of living. The first suggestion
of it came from the Empress Julia Domna, to whose re
markable literary circle Philostratus belonged. We know
just enough of this circle to see that it contained many
cleverer people than Philostratus, and it seems, from admis
sions in his preface to the book, that Philostratus wrote,
or if you choose compiled, the life of Apollonius with a
hampering desire to suit the tastes of this coterie. There
was Moesa, Julia s sister, a particularly domineering person,
as history was soon to show ; and Moesa had two daughters
who well knew their own minds. Supposing these ladies
interested in having some one write an ideal presentation of
the life of Apollonius, to whom could they turn ? They
might think of their legal friend Ulpian, like themselves of
Phoenician descent, but he was out of the question ; nor
could they expect literary skill of Papinian, as they well
knew, since he was a kinsman of theirs. Of their circle,
however, were Aelian the honey-tongued, and Philostratus.
The ridiculous credulity of Aelian makes it possible that
he would have done worse even than Philostratus. Julia
perhaps chose Philostratus because he represented Greek
1 See a dissertation by C. von Wulfften Pathe. Berlin 1887.
2 6o APPENDIX IV
culture and had no convictions of his own. It was his
clever style that she especially appreciated. To him the
empress gave, as he is careful to relate in beginning,
the notes roughly made by Damis the Ninivite and en
trusted to a kinsman from whom she got them in the pro
cess of collecting books, which occupied much of her
attention. Out of these notes she thought the skill of
Philostratus could fashion a record which should embody
the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Being daughter to a
Phoenician who was high priest in the temple of the Sun
at Emesa, she naturally felt that impulse toward intensi
fying and reforming men s faith which characterised in
those days her native corner of the world. Thence had
come not only Apollonius of Tyana, but Paul of Tarsus
and Simon Magus, as well as the beginnings of Christianity,
and out of Julia s own house was soon to come Elagabalus,
whose execrable reign was a Nightmare of Religious
Reformation.
We may well shudder to think what might have been
the result if our records of the life of Christ had fallen
into the hands of a Philostratus. What if we had, instead
of the four Gospels, a smoothed and would-be racy narra
tive written in the vein of your Parisian feuilletonist, 1 to
suit the tastes of a circle far more definitely restricted than
the modem " tout Paris " ? An irritating impression of un
reality, which forces itself upon the reader of Philostratus
Life of Apollonius, makes it hard to get through even
one of its eight tedious books. No one has more pithily
expressed the feelings of all upon this point than Erasmus
in his preface to St. Luke addressed to Henry the Eighth.
I quote from an old translation : " Who readeth the lyfe
of Apollonius Tyaneus any otherwayse then as a certayne
dreamel Yea or rather who vouchsalueth to reade it at all ? " !
1 G. Bernhardy applies this word to Philostratus in the Allgemeine
Litteratur Zeitung, 1839.
- Quis Apollonii Tyanaei vitam non veluti somnium quoddam legit ?
Imo quis legere dignatur ?
APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 261
Indeed the surprising fact is that respect, veneration, and
even worship should have attached to Apollonius after he
had been so completely victimised by the journalism of his
day. And this surprising fact is surely an argument for
something made of solider stuff than dreams, something
really admirable in the true Apollonius, if anybody ever
disentangled him from the play-acting personage of Philo-
stratus.
No one has the means of forming at the present day an
independent opinion of Apollonius. We are obliged first
to reject the picture of him given by Philostratus, and then,
either to have no mind about him at all or to be of the
mind of those who did know the facts. These may be
separated into three classes : first come the religious-minded
Christians who in spite of their prejudice against a reviver
of paganism respected in Apollonius a man of saintly life
and religious inspiration ; second come the scoffers like
Lucian and Apuleius, who did not take religion seriously,
and thought such a man necessarily either a knave or a
fool, or both ; third comes in a class all by himself Dio
Cassius the historian, who evidently never quite appre
ciated what he was talking about in mentioning Apollonius.
In one place where he is irritated he says substantially,
"Caracalla preferred the company of freedmen to that of
men of my mark, and was given over to cheats such as was
Apollonius the Cappadocian." 1 Dio forgets the tremendous
endorsement with which he has previously accompanied a
much clumsier account than is given by Philostratus of one
of Apollonius great deeds. " No matter how much men
may doubt it, this story is as true as truth itself," " 2 he says
after relating that while Domitian s assassination was in
progress at Rome a certain man of Tyana named Apollonius
went up to a high place and described the event before the
people as if he were present, though he and they were in
Ephesus "or some such place."
1 Ixxvii. 1 8.
~ TOVTO fj.tv ourws tytvero, K&V /JLVpiaKis rts diriffT^ffr). Ixvii. end.
262 APPENDIX IV
Of the three classes above mentioned of those who had
opportunity to know the facts about Apollonius, the third,
which contains only Dio, need occupy us no further,
because Dio plainly had never given any serious thought to
the career of the Tyanaean, and did not know that his won
derful Ephesian clairvoyant, Apollonius, was Apollonius
the Cappadocian, whom he scorned. The second class
contains Lucian and Apuleius, each of whom mentions
Apollonius just once.
Apuleius, in his self-vindication against the charge of
using sorcery to win the hand of the heiress Prudentilla,
says indignantly, after repudiating the charge : "If you can
but prove the least colourable motive of self-interest in my
suit for Prudentilla, then I grant you all. Then you shall
call me a Carinondas, a Damigeron, a very Moses, an
Apollonius, Dardanus himself, or any magician of vaunted
repute since Zoroaster and Hostanes." Here murmurs
interrupt him, and he turns to the magistrate, saying,
"Maximus, you see the hubbub they make, because I
named a few magicians names. What can be done with
people so low and uncivilised ? " It does not suit Apuleius,
for the purposes of his defence, to say more than this, but
he plainly suggests that Apollonius, who had not been dead
more than forty years at the time, was better than popular
prejudice would allow.
Lucian of Samosata a Voltaire capable of making
merry over the burning of Servetus bears, by his silence
more than by what he says, a similar testimony to the
quality of Apollonius, whom he dismisses with a sneer at the
absurdity of the play-actor s part which he played. If the
Apollonius known to him had been really the Philostratus-
Apollonius, Lucian would have made merry over all his
adventures and pretensions l instead of saying simply that
1 For a forcible presentation of this, see Bishop Lloyd s letter to
Bentley, who had consulted him about a proposed edition of the life of
Apollonius. After printing one or two pages Bentley abandoned this
project.
APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 263
the first teacher and corrupter of the arch-impostor Alex
ander was a follower of the "tragic Tyanaean."
When it is remembered that Lucian believed fervently
in the doctrines of Epicurus, against which the whole life
of Apollonius had been a protest, an inclination to neglect
any insinuations from this source will become irresistible.
Accordingly we have left for our advisers only the Chris
tian opponents of Apollonius, who seem the only persons
that took the pains to understand him. The general im
pression which they had of him is borne out by the best of
all possible witnesses Apollonius himself. There remains
an extract from a work written by the Tyanaean s own
hand, which was so prized that it was engraved at Byzant
ium on pillars of brass.
This quotation is cited twice by Eusebius of Caesarea
whose date is 330 A.D. once in his Preparation for, 1 and
once in his Demonstration of, 2 the Gospel. " Even the
well-known Apollonius of Tyana, whose name is upon all
men s lips for praise, is said to write much in the same
strain in his work on sacrifice about the first and the great
God." Then follows a confirmation of the account in
Philostratus of the new Pythagorean doctrine of his hero.
Apollonius teaches that "there is one Highest God above
and apart from the lower and many gods. Beyond the
reach of the contaminating world of sense as he is, nothing
apprehensible by any organ of sense, neither burnt offerings
nor bloodless sacrifices, can reach him, not even uttered
prayers. He is the substance of things seen, and in him
plants, animals, men, and the elements, of which the world
is made, have life and exist. He is the noblest of exist
ences ; and men must duly worship him with the only
faculty in them to which no material organ is attached
their speculative reason." Eusebius quotes this with
approval as coming from the most illustrious philosophers
of Greece, and thus pays to Apollonius, by appealing to
him against the baser sort of paganism, the highest tribute
1 C. 12, book iv. - C. 5, book iii.
264 APPENDIX IV
that a Christian could. This is the more significant, be
cause Eusebius is the one who was at great pains to refute
Hierocles on behalf of the Christians.
Hierocles maintained that Apollonius had lived a more
exemplary and divine life upon earth than the Christ of the
Gospels. His miracles were more numerous, Hierocles
said, and better vouched for than those of Christ, and yet
there was no pretence that he was god, but only one
favoured of the gods. All this Eusebius attacks and
refutes without pretending, as many carpers at the Philo-
stratus-Apollonius have, that Apollonius was " a devil with
bat s wings and a long tail." 1 He very rightly holds
Philostratus responsible for many of the erroneous preten
sions of Hierocles. Origen, who wrote his defence of
Christianity against Celsus before this controversy between
Hierocles and Eusebius took place, and before any attempt
to put Apollonius on a par with Christ had been made,
speaks with the same temperate respect of Apollonius,
mentioning him, however, as a worker of miracles. 2
Other authors confirm some of the better traits of the
Apollonius of Philostratus. St. Augustin, for instance,
commends him as exercising a larger measure of self-control
than Zeus. Eunapius speaks of his life as proving him
better than a philosopher. " He was something between
the divine and the human, and his is not so much a life as
the sojourn of a god with men." Eunapius, however, was
a pagan, and his testimony is of very different weight from
that given by Christian writers. Moreover Eunapius
certainly had in mind chiefly, if not solely, the Apollonius
of Philostratus. Concurrent testimony to the high standing
of Apollonius may be accepted with all due reservations
from various pagan sources. There was doubtless some
thing in the facts about him known to the Empress Julia
and her circle which singled him out as the best hero for
a Pagan reformation. Less weight attaches to her son
1 More the Platonist puts this phrase into the mouths of the detractors
of Apollo and his oracles. 2 Contr. Cels. vi. 41.
APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 265
Caracalla s building of a temple in his honour, but the
same is hardly true of the conduct of her great-nephew,
the Emperor Alexander Severus. In his Lararium, says
Spartianus, he had not only the statues of deified emperors,
but also a choice of the most righteous the more especially
hallowed souls. Among these was Apollonius, and also,
according to a contemporary writer, Christ, Abraham, and
Orpheus, as well as his own ancestors. This is a particu
larly interesting passage, for it tends to show how the
religious impulse which led men to deify the emperors,
finding in their unsaintly lives its own corrective, was led
on to the deification of any and all conspicuously noble
characters. 1 Who shall say that the state of mind to which
this led did not make men better able to reach the ideal
of the Imitation of Christ ?
Under the same category of pagan tributes to the
character and sanctity of Apollonius falls the tale of how
he saved his native Tyana from destruction by turning
aside the wrath of Aurelian. Apollonius appeared, and by
his bodily presence saved Tyana, just as Athena is said to
have shown herself to the affrighted Alaric, who spared
Athens in consequence. These latest results of the myth-
making power in paganism bear a striking family resem
blance to the earliest lives of the Christian saints. In
them gods, demi-gods, and heroes alike are assimilated to
the status of patron saints.
But to return to the most important, the only convincing,
tributes to the excellency of Apollonius of Tyana, those
from early Christian writers, the last, but not the least,
which shall be mentioned is in a letter of the Christian
Sidonius Apollinaris to a counsellor of Evariges, king of
the Goths. 2 As Cudworth (writing in a rather prejudiced
vein) says of him : " though a Christian, he (Sidonius) was
1 The pinnacle of sanctity reached by Apollonius did certainly place
his claims to reverence on a par with those of the emperors. This accounts
for the well-known coins that bear his profile upon them.
2 Letters, book viii. , third letter.
266 APPENDIX IV
so dazzled with the glittering show and lustre of his
(Apollonius ) counterfeit virtues, as if he had been enchanted
by this magician long after his death." The following is a
sufficient though not minutely accurate translation of the
letter in question. " Read of a man (with reverence to the
Catholick faith be it spoken) in most things like yourself,
sought after by the rich, yet not seeking after riches;
covetous of knowledge, not of money; abstemious in the
middle of feasts, plainly cloathed amongst the sumptuous,
severe amongst the luxurious, rough and unadorned in the
midst of delicate nations, and shining with a venerable
negligence amongst the wanton nobles of Persian kings.
And when he made no use of the flocks either for food or
apparel, he was rather slighted than envied in the kingdoms
thro which he travelled, and when the good fortune of
kings favoured him in everything, he only asked those
favours which he was more ready to give than to take." 1
Surely we need not be more prejudiced against Apol
lonius than were his Christian antagonists in the days
when more was known about him than we can know
to-day. We may, at least, leaving momentarily out of
account whether he was or was not in himself an impostor,
be thankful that the idealised figure of Apollonius rallied
around itself so much of the life and enthusiasm of depart
ing paganism ; for there were points of striking similarity
between his life and teaching and that life the imitation of
which is Christianity. We may safely see in the attempted
reforms of Apollonius a preparation of the pagan world for
Christianity, since "even Christians have thought rever
ently of him, and believed that he did his wonders by the
power of God, or by secret philosophy and knowledge of
nature not revealed to other men." 2
1 For this, version see Bayle s Dictionary, translated in 1735, s.v.
" Apollonius."
2 Meric Casaubon, alluding to words attributed to Justin Martyr.
APPENDIX V
THE STATUS OF MODERN GREEK DOCTORS
IN almost any Greek village you choose, the man whom all
delight to honour is pretty sure to be a doctor. The
mayor, or demarch, whose courtesy I experienced at
Thebes, was a medical practitioner, and in many other
places Kalamata, for instance great kindnesses came to
me from doctors, men of influence always. In one town
of considerable importance the apothecary had been elected
mayor.
What the Greeks have always admired is that men s
intellects should unerringly hit the mark. Nowhere can
this unerring insight be better shown than by the swift leap
of a wise doctor s mind to the truth about disease. In the
United States of America there was, at the beginning of
this century, an admiration more than Greek for doctors,
since they were credited with such artistic capacity that a
Dr. Thornton was encouraged to compete with a pro
fessional architect for the honour of building the Capitol
at Washington. 1 Special causes, however, brought Greek
doctors into the forefront of intellectual life after the
supremacy of the Turks.
" Under the Turkish rule and before the Greek revolu-
1 See Mr. Henry Adam s interesting account of this matter in his
History of the United States of America during the first Administration
of Thomas Jefferson, vol. i. ch. iv. p. in.
268 APPENDIX V
tion," my friend M. Demetrios Bikelas writes me, "most
of the learned Greeks who were not clergymen were doctors.
They could not pursue, with any chance of profit, any
other branch of studies. Medicine sometimes opened
the way to higher positions. Thus the celebrated Alex
ander Mavrocordato, grand drogman of the Porte (1636-
1714), was a doctor of Padua. Italy was then the place
whither such Greek students as could leave their country
resorted. At the beginning of this century a great many
of the learned Greeks who helped the revival of their
country were equally doctors. Neither these nor those; of
the preceding centuries confined themselves to medicine ;
some were poets, such as Vilaras of Janina (1771-1823).
Even Christopoulos, one of the best lyric poets of Greece
(1772-1847), had studied medicine at Buda ; Coray, the
famous scholar, was a doctor of Montpellier (1748-1833).
Colettis, who played a great part during the war of the
revolution, and died Prime Minister of Greece in 1847,
began his career as the doctor of Ali Pasha of Janina.
The fathers of the Caratheodori two cousins, one of
whom (after having been minister of foreign affairs, and the
representative of Turkey at the Congress of Berlin) is
actually Prince of Samos, and the other Minister of
Turkey at Brussels were both distinguished doctors at
Constantinople.
" The calling of a doctor was so honoured that custom
had attached to it the title of Your Excellence, ^o^rarc.
Doctors are no more addressed by this title in Athens, but
I am not sure that there are not still Greek countries
where they enjoy this title, generally applied to diploma
tists. Since the revolution and the institution of the
Greek university, medicine is so far from being the only
branch of knowledge pursued in Greece, that the faculty of
law draws the greatest number of students at the Athenian
University. And yet there has been the natural increase,
a very considerable one, in the number of Greek doctors.
It would be invidious to choose names among the Greek
STATUS OF MODERN GREEK DOCTORS
269
doctors who have distinguished themselves in Greece of
late years. I may, as an instance of the aptitude of Greeks
for that science, mention the names of the late M. Damas-
chino and of M. Panas, who had both attained to the
Professorship in the Faculty of Paris. I may also mention
the well-known author, Dr. Paspati, who studied in
America. Dr. Cavafy, too, one of the physicians of St.
George s Hospital in London, is a Greek by birth."
VII
APHRODITE AT PAPHOS
THE statue of Aphrodite found by excavation on ground
sacred to Epidaurian Aesculapius represents that smiling
goddess as the wearer of a sword. 1 Here is an ancient
reproduction of that beautiful statue fashioned by the
Athenian Alcamenes, 2 a statue whose cheeks and full front
face were lauded by Lucian of Samosata. Of this early
masterpiece the Epidaurian statue, though mutilated, gives a
charming suggestion. But, alas ! Lucian tells of a pulse
of sweet harmony in its rounded and dainty wrist, and a
light movement of charm and delicacy in the fingers. These
perfections we shall never see, for the Epidaurian copy is
bereft of hands.
But why should a statue of Aphrodite grace the
sanctuary at Epidaurus? The same reason, though hard
for us to give, suffices which established her worship at
Athens on the south side of the summit of the Acropolis,
not far above the Athenian precinct of Aesculapius. 3 There
1 See a beautiful photograph in Brunn s Denkmaler series.
2 See Furtwangler, in Roscher s Ausfiirliches Lexicon, p. 413.
3 Still nearer to this Asclepieium was a shrine probably of Aphrodite
Pandemos, i.e. that aspect of the goddess which brings her into the worst
company.
vii APHRODITE AT VARIOUS SANCTUARIES 271
she was worshipped as Sosandra, 1 a rescuer of men, and
there stood the wonderful and very ancient statue by
Calamis. At Athens, furthermore, was the great original by
Alcamenes just spoken of, the Aphrodite of the garden.
Within the Cnidian precinct of Demeter, and not far from
her own home at Cnidus, a head of Aphrodite was found,
which, though mutilated, shows in its expression the
influence of Demeter; and Aphrodite s shrine upon the pass
near Daphne was one of the halting places of the procession
to Eleusis. Thus was Aphrodite often associated in
neighbourly fashion with Demeter and with Aesculapius.
At Corinth, Elis, Sparta, Delphi, in various places of
Crete, on the island Cythera, in most centres of Sicilian life,
all over Asia Minor everywhere, in fact, where Greek
religion had its footing, near Apollo s temple on Delos, on
the Olympian hill of Cronos, high above the temple of great
Zeus himself, the Greek goddess Aphrodite was worshipped,
and statues of her were placed near the special shrines of
all the other gods, while the very throne of Phidian Zeus,
in his Olympian temple, was adorned with a sculptured
representation of her birth at Paphos.
The influence for good and for harm of the ideal repre
sented by this goddess was one of the most widely felt in
antiquity, nor was her hold upon men s minds always super
ficial. 2 According to the ancient view of her power, Aphrodite
swayed the fate of gods as well as of men. 3 This power she
exercised not only to cover the earth with fair flowers and
fruits, but also to bewitch men, to allure women, and to
enchant the mind of Zeus himself, and high Apollo. The
impulse of love which she inspired was stronger even than
1 See Lucian, Imag. 4, and cf. Furtwangler as above, pp. 411 and 412.
- See below, p. 303. 3 Horn. Hymn, iv. 247 ff.
272 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
Fate, or as her Athenian worshippers reverently put it, she
was the oldest of the Fates.
It will repay us well to go and find this marvellously
strong power in the place where, as an influence over
Greeks, it had its birth. Let us therefore turn to the
western coast of Cyprus, an island which is probably more
Greek to-day than it ever was in the past. 1 Aphrodite rose
from the sea at Old Paphos in Cyprus, and as a Greek
goddess of strong power, she ruled Hellas from her Paphian
precinct. This is significant, for the fact that Cyprus and
Paphos were not originally of Greece prepares us for
another fact, which the Greeks themselves well knew, that
Aphrodite came to them from many parts of the world,
but chiefly from Phoenicia, and, through Phoenicia, ulti
mately from Assyria. 2
Having her home in Paphos, aloof from the centre 01
1 See F. W. Barry, "Report on the Census of Cyprus " (London, 1884).
Of 186,173 souls in Cyprus (1881) 140,793 speak Greek, and 42,638
speak Turkish, while Arabic, English, Maltese, Armenian, and French are
spoken by not inconsiderable groups. The Greek Church has 137,631
members, and there are 45,458 Mohammedans in Cyprus.
2 If this statement be so worded as to exclude originally Greek charac
teristics from the early goddess, it is undoubtedly false. Aphrodite,
daughter to Zeus and Dione, appears as an almost purely Greek concep
tion (free from any oriental touch) every now and again in the early poets
(Homer and Sappho), and there is an echo of such a report of her in
Euripides ; but after all that Holwerda and Engel have said to prove her to
be Greek, and to derive, so far as she was not Greek, from Asia Minor,
Aphrodite remains in her most characteristic qualities of Semitic origin.
See Duncker s History, i. p. 274. As a learned authority says (Robert s
Preller, p. 352) Diese Verschmelzung der Leben gebenden und vernicht-
enden Macht in einer weiblichen Gottheit finden wir nicht nur in
Babylonien und Assyrien, sondern auch bei den Semitischen Stammen
des Westens, bei den Syrern den Phoenizern und Carthagern, bei denen
die Baaltis, die Astarte-Aschera, die Dido- Anna abwechselnd Segen und
Frucht, Tod und Verderben sendet." See Plautus, Mercator, near the
beginning : Diva Astarte hominum deorumque vis, vita salus ; rursus
eadem quae est | Pernicies, mors, interitus." On the theory of her Hittite
origin, see Appendix VII.
vii EASTERN CHARACTERISTICS 273
Greece, Aphrodite was less transformed by Hellenism
than any other of the figures and ideas brought to Greece
from the East. 1 Here, then, in Cyprus, may be studied a
visible contact between the Semitic and the Hellenic genius
in religion. Aphrodite, as the Greeks knew and worshipped
her, was neither Semitic nor Greek, but a curious compli
cation akin both to Greece and to the East far and near.
She bears traces of the armed Ishtar of Assyrian mythology,
as for instance in the above mentioned Epidaurian copy
from the statue of Alcamenes, where she has put on a sword,
and again in statues known to have existed at Sparta, Corinth,
and elsewhere. In fact under the smiles and blandishments
of golden Aphrodite in her sunniest Grecian days lurked
always the jealous wrath of a divinity who would have
none other before her. Here for the first time in Greek
mythology we have clearly set before us a jealous and
revengeful 2 omnipotence asserting itself, not as in Dionysus
case over men only, but also over the gods. 3 Aphrodite is
much more than a deified incarnation of the powers of
growth and increase in nature, and although the same be
true of the Eleusinian gods, yet in a certain oriental sense
her power has a wider field than that either of Dionysus or
of Demeter. No doubt her influence over typically Greek
minds was the more superficial on this account. But
where and while she ruled, her sway was absolute, and
admitted of no questioning. Her will, whether for evil or
for good, was always law, and the worshippers of her
1 The Cyprians well knew and freely admitted that Aphrodite came
from the East. See Herod, i. 105 : TT)S Su/j^s ev Acr/cdXon i 7r6Xt rtJ ej
viro\ei(j)dfrTcs effvX-rjcrav TT/S Ovpavit^s A(f&gt;po8lTrjs rb ip6v tffri 8 TOVTO
rb Ipbv iravT&v apx^rarov ipQ&gt;v 6&lt;ra TCWTTJS TT}S Qeov /cat yap TO tv
Ipbv evdevrev ey&ero, cbs avroi \tyov&lt;ri
2 Iliad, iii. 413 and ff.
3 Horn. Hymn, iv. 247 and ff.
T
274 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
predilection prostrated themselves before it, like slaves be
fore a sultan. They all trembled and bowed down in fear of
the dreadful visitation of her wrath. This is an aspect of the
goddess of which those who try to understand her never must
lose sight, but lest we dwell upon it so long as to forget the
more genial and graceful traits in her character, let us rather
contemplate Cyprus, her island home, her refuge in supreme
moments alike of sorrow and of joy, Cyprus, the island made
glad with dances a mother of winsome loves. 1
This is the isle of many names^called by the prophets of
Israel Chittim ; by the poets of Greece surnamed, from its
many jutting headlands on the north, the Horned Isle; and,
from the lowland flats upon its southern and eastern sides,
the Hidden Isle. Approach the south-western coast, if you
will as did the Knights Hospitallers of old from Rhodes.
Let the morning be breezy and hazy so that clouds may rest
upon the hills that cluster at the feet of the higher ranges
behind, crowned by Mount Troodos, anciently Mount
Olympus. 2 Then there will be a mist rising up from the
sea and meeting these low-lingering vapours. At such a
moment Cyprus is the hidden isle, 8 hidden until, at the
1 Insula laeta choris, blandorum et mater amorum, Claudian.
2 Many modern maps put the Olympus elsewhere, but with no good
reason. See Appendix VII.
3 " Varia autem nomina illius erant, in quibus Cryptus, Plin. V. xxxi.
Vocatam ante Acamantida tradit Philonides, Cerastin Xenagoras, et Aspel-
iam et Amathusiam; AstynomusCrypton, et Coliniam. Causam addit Steph-
anus, quod sub mare occultata merit. A(rriW/iios 8 (pTjffi, lUpvirrbv
KK\T)(rdai diet, TO Kptiirrecrdai TroAAd/as virb T?}S daXdaffrjs, Ita enim hie
emendo: quippe perperam editur, Kvirpov, Cryptum . . . turn Eustathius,
in Dionysium. ot 5 Kpvirrov irore K\T]0TJvai avrrjv \{yov&lt;ri 5td rb KKpixf&gt;6ai
virb daXacra-rjs. Aliam causam videtur assignare Phurnutus, De nat. Deor.
ubi de Venere : e/c roirrou 8e KOI iepa rijs A^podir^ ^ r&v Kvd^pojv
vrjcros elvai SoKel, rd%a de Kal i) KI^TT/JOS, ffW^Sowrd TTWS /card rotfvojjut
Ty Kpv\f/ei, . . . nomine suo occultationem referens. " From an unpublished
MS. (autograph) of John Meursius, Cyprus, Lib. I. chap. vi. , in St. Mark s
Library, class x. cod. sec. xvii. a, 214, i, 156.
vii THREE REGIONS OF CYPRUS 275
last moment, the view of it springs upon you. Then after
crossing the tempestuous gulf of Sathalia l one may feel
perhaps like shipwrecked Odysseus, who
. . . caught a glimpse of shore close at hand
Giving a sharp glance forward upborne on the crest of a
billow.
If, instead of landing at Limassol, the port lying nearest
to the temple of Paphian Aphrodite, we had approached
Cyprus from the north, a far more picturesque impression
would have been received. Close to the northern coast
line from end to end runs a bold chain of picturesque
peaks, of the same formation with, and parallel to, the
Taurus range in Asia Minor. Cyprus consists first of these
two mountain ranges, the northern and southern; and
secondly of an alluvial plain, called Mesorea or Mid-
mountainland, that stretches between and connects the two.
A geologist of the airy and positive-poetical 2 sort would
say that this midmountain plain was but a film of yesterday, 3
1 Brother Stephen Lusignan describes it as " 1 espouvantable gouffre
de Sathalie," and the legend connecting St. Helena (the empress) with
Cyprus tells of her stilling its stormy uproar by dropping into it a nail
from the true cross. Curiously enough the cross upon which the penitent
thief was crucified was discovered in Cyprus by Lazarus and St. Mary
Magdalene ! Meursius, Cyprus, cap. 28 of Book II.
2 I need not say that a very different sort of geologist has been found
in the gifted M. Albert Gaudry, to give an admirable account of Cyprus.
See his paper presented to the Soci^te" Ge"ologique de France, on November
14, 1853 (vol. xi. in the second series of that Society s publications) ; also
his " Recherches scientifiques dans I Orient," published with a beautiful
geological map at Paris 1855.
3 How far this is really the case largely depends upon the as yet unde
termined age of the northern range of mountains. This whole question is
dealt with by Dr. Oberhummer of Berlin in two most thorough papers
" Aus Cypern " and "Die Insel Cypern," published respectively in the
7.eitschrift der Gesellschaft fiir Erdknnde zu Berlin (xxv. Band 1890), and
the Jahresbericht der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Miinchen (Heft 13,
1890). Dr. Oberhummer speaks of the probability that Herr Alfred
Bergeat will soon solve the difficult questions at issue by careful reports
276 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
and would tell you of a recent era when there was no visible
plain, but only the submerging sea stretched between. Then
Cyprus was not one but two islands the northern and the
southern. The northern island was, at that imagined and
not impossible time, a mere backbone of bold peaks, an
outwork, so to speak, protecting the parallel mountains of
the Asiatic coast in Cilicia or Caramania only fifty miles
distant to the north. Look southward and, supposing
yourself (always in company of the poet geologer) to have
gone backward a few aeons, you see first a gulf of thirty
miles expanse, and then the southern or Troodos island of
Cyprus. Of these two mountain parts of Cyprus the history
has been as different as are their scenery and their climate.
On the southern side of the island the slopes of Mount
Troodos are the one and only refuge from the fever-
exhalations and terrific heats of the height of summer, and
thither all fly who are able to do so, when the dog-days
impend. Of this southern side of the island Martial s
saying holds true, " infamis calore Cyprus, 1 Cyprus is
decidedly hot" Such harbours as Cyprus boasts there is
not one on the island where an ordinary steamship can
find safe anchorage are with one unimportant exception
on the southern side. This southern Cyprus is the Cyprus
of history, and the midmountain plain 2 belongs to it. In
from the spot. The interesting and instructive account given by Dr.
Oberhummer of the table-mountains in the midmountain plain of Cyprus,
and his comparison of them with features in the Sahara, is one of his many
contributions to knowledge of Cyprus. His papers came to me unfor
tunately as I was going to press, and I therefore profited too little by them.
1 Infamem nimio calore Cypron
Observes, moneo precorque, Flacce,
Messes area cum teret crepantes
Et fulvi iuba saeviet leonis. Epigr. ix. 91.
2 This Mesorea, one end of which is fertilised by the Pediaeus, a
Cypriote river Nile, Gaudry, Recherches, p. 96, M. Gaudry calls " un
vii MEETING POINT OF EAST AND WEST 277
what remains, the mountain backbone of northern Cyprus,
no great centre either of religious, political, or commercial
interests (unless Cerynia 1 be forced to do duty as such) has
ever been established ; and therefore this, its most beautiful
and healthful portion, may be said never to have belonged
to Cyprus in any real fashion. This whole northern reach
is little more than an elegant extract from the obscurer
portions of Asia Minor, whereas the great plain and the
southern mountains of Cyprus had a physical character of
their own. Here was a natural meeting - ground for all
peoples of the East and West where the tongues of
Syria, Assyria, Phoenicia, and Egypt from the East, and
the Greek and Roman vernaculars from the West, could
be heard. Even when the centre of commercial exchange
between the East and West had long passed away from
Southern Cyprus, still the island remained a place of
congress, a point of contact and impact for eastern and
western religious influences.
The present status of Cyprus is in fact its whole history
in a nutshell. Nothing for Cyprus and everything for all
the world besides. Governed by the English on ordinary
terms, Cyprus would have every chance of prosperity, if we
may judge from the Ionian islands under British adminis
tration. But these western rulers in Cyprus are now
administering Eastern laws, not English nor even Cypriote,
but Turkish laws. The English in Cyprus have been
described somewhat bitterly by one of themselves as Turkish
tax-gatherers. And these taxes are not even levied for the
Turk s own use, but go to assure a pittance to Turkish
des lieux les plus fertiles du mondc." In the season when I saw it nothing
of this richness appeared.
1 Before the days of Cerynia (Cerines), Lapethus came very near to
attaining a real importance.
278 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
bondholders in France, England, and elsewhere. 1 So it has
been always with Cyprus. Before the Turks, the more
rapacious Venetians exploited the island most mercilessly ;
they got it by a trick the very nature of which showed that
Venice had lost every imperial instinct, and could only
oppress. Before the Venetians came the French dynasty of
the Lusignans, 2 who established a feudalism efficient perhaps,
but certainly corrupt and monstrously cruel from the first.
Lusignans, Genoese, Venetians, all these western potentates
and powers lost every moral quality the moment they
touched unhappy Cyprus, so that the islanders might well
regret the days when Rome and Byzantium 3 ruled with even
1 In his paper (pp. 98 and ff. ) " Die Insel Cypern referred to above, Dr.
Oberhummer gives an extremely clear account of the financial impossibilities
under which the English administration of Cyprus is now and has been
labouring. The yearly tribute ultimately payable to the bondholders is
92,686. This was fixed on the basis of an average account of revenues
for the five years preceding 1878. Those familiar with the incapacity
for administration possessed and prized by the unspeakable Turk will not
wonder that the calculations of 1878 were all wrong. Dr. Oberhummer
gives the following figures of yearly income and outgo in Cyprus, and they
speak for themselves
Income. Outgo.
1879-80 148,360 117,445
1880-81 156,095 119,416
1881-82 163,732 157,672
1882-83 189,000 120,000
1883-84 194,051 111,685
2 On this whole chapter in Cypriote history the greatest authority, as
well as the most entertaining, is the gifted M. de Mas Latrie. For a
most readable book on Cyprus in the Middle Ages, and in modern times
down to the English occupation, see his L ile de Chypre, Paris, 1879, which
is dedicated to Sir Henry Layard. See also his monumental Histoire de
I ile de Chypre sous le regne des princes de la maison de Lusignan, Paris,
1861.
3 A flourishing condition of Cypriote industry and a high repute for
Cypriote stuffs in Byzantine days is implied in a letter written by the holy
Epiphanios to the Bishop of Jerusalem. In the midst of a tirade against
the heresy of Origen, Epiphanios alludes to a high-handed proceeding of
his own. He had entered a church and found there a rich cloth, with a
representation of the face of Christ or of that of some saint. He ordered
vii NO CYPRIOTE NATIONALITY 279
hand, assured protection, and moderate imposts over their ill-
fated country. And to-day, when their rulers are the best
and most upright of men, ready and eager to help, a fatality
prevents the island from gaining what it should, and still
the hardships of Cyprus win her no hope.
So far back as history reaches there has been no inde
pendence for Cyprus, and there never has been a Cypriote
nationality or national enthusiasm. It is all the more sur
prising, therefore, that a Greek enthusiasm has seized upon
the larger portion of the natives to-day. The vivacity and
strength of the modern Greek nationality is nowhere more
apparent than in this peaceful and almost complete conquest
of the allegiance of Cyprus.
For the theatre of a religious evolution where the western
spirit of Hellenic beauty and independence should meet the
eastern spirit of blind submission and comprehension of
divine omnipotence, and combine on equal terms, a place
which belonged to no one and to every one Cyprus was
required. I have enumerated the various occupants of
Cyprus since the days of Rome only as a prelude to a
similar enumeration which shall go back as far as, and per
haps a step farther than, the undimmed record of history
may warrant. Such a backward survey is plainly needed in
order that there may be some knowledge of the background
upon which the composite international worship of Paphian
Aphrodite was sketched.
Before the Romans were the Greeks, before the Greeks
the Phoenicians. Before the Phoenicians were the Lycians
this to be cut down, and gave word that a poor man should have it for
grave-clothes. There were murmurs ; the people thought he should have
replaced it. This he promised, and now apologises for delay. He had
delayed, wishing to get a good one from Cyprus." Now, under pressure
he sends the best he can get.
280 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
or were they the Hittites? and a Semitic race so thinks
Mr. Max Duemmler was displaced by the Lycians. Perhaps
these were the Hittites. The whole subject of the pre-
Phoenician inhabitants of Cyprus is beset with unusual
difficulty. 1 Were these Lycians, for instance, the writers of
the strange Cypriote characters found all over the island ?
Or are these Cypriote letters to be attributed to Max
Duemmler s Semitic aborigines ? Other authorities declare
that whoever first used these Cypriote characters whether
you call him Lycian or Semitic or aboriginal was a
Hittite of the Hittites.
Plainly we shall hardly escape without offending various
people of various minds if we undertake to have an opinion
about the earliest takers and makers of Cyprus. There
are those who find traces in Lycia and Phrygia, through
out the modern Caramania, of an early invasion from Thrace
and the West, and who claim that this invasion swept over
Cyprus as well. Certainly these Hittites or Thracians or
Semites or Lycians could easily cross the fifty miles of sea
and come over from Cilicia. In fact the crossing has many
times been made by invading grasshoppers, 2 feared to-day
more than Hittites, Thracians, or Lycians.
1 Mr. J. Arthur R. Munro writes me : "As to the primitive population
I think the evidence is tending to show that there was a great immigration
of a semi-Greek stock from Asia Minor where they had passed under
oriental influences, and only a slight immigration (if any) direct from
Greece. The connection with Arcadia in language (v. Meister) and
traditions, names, etc., seems to me best explained not by colonisation,
but by supposing the first tide of Greek peoples flowed southward in
parallel streams (i) into Greece, and (2) over the Hellespont, the Arcadians
being a remnant of the pre-Dorian people maintaining themselves in the
Highlands."
2 See Gaudry s Recherches, p. 147, also the excellent book, published
in 1878, on Cyprus by R. Hamilton Lang of the Imperial Ottoman
Bank. Chapter x. deals with droughts and grasshoppers. The
very remarkable sympathy of Mr. Lang for the Cypriote peasantry
vii PHOENICIANS IN CYPRUS 281
The Phoenician invasion itself was marvellously early,
for their first Cypriote possession was apparently their first
foothold on foreign soil. Anxious to enlarge the trade of
their coast towns of Tyre and Sidon, they founded a trading
post on the nearly opposite strand of Cyprus, at the place
now called Larnaca, and used in modern and in medieval
times as the sea -port of the inland cathedral -town of
Nicosia, also called Lefcosia. The ancient name bestowed
here by the Phoenicians was Kittim, preserved by the
Greeks and Romans in the form of Citium. The site chosen
first by the Phoenicians in Cyprus was wisely selected, for
it remains to-day the important port of the whole island.
Now its importance comes chiefly from relations with the
West ; anciently it was wholly identified with the fortunes of
Phoenician Tyre and Sidon.
"The burden of Tyre, howl, ye ships of Tarshish,"-
says Isaiah the prophet, " for it is laid waste so that there
is no house, no entering in ; from the land of Chittim it is
revealed to me. Be still, ye inhabitants of the isle, thou
whom the merchants of Zidon that pass over the sea have
replenished."
The other two places for colonising selected by the
Phoenicians were Amathus and Old Paphos, neither of which
has preserved a shadow even of that sometime glory.
Even in ancient times it was apparently the religion rather
than the commerce of Phoenicia that kept its foothold in
these two places, which were never of any great extent or
importance outside of their respective sanctuaries. Hence
makes his book an invaluable one, and its worth is increased by the
appreciative use he has made of an unpublished report on Cypriote
agriculture made in 1844 by M. Fourcade of the French Consular Service.
Mr. Lang s book well deserved to be translated into French, as it was
in 1879.
282 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
there is a plentiful lack of evidence 1 from the soil itself
and its contents to show that Phoenicians ever found lodg
ment in either place.
The Phoenicians were the common carriers of antiquity,
and their genius was so purely for expediting exchange and
promoting commerce that they had, even in their great
centres of commerce let alone such places as Paphos and
Amathus little or no energy left for building. If this was
true of Phoenicians in the country of their birth and pre
ference, how much more true must it have been of the
Phoenicians in Cyprus, an alien land where no monuments
of any epoch, saving tombs, have survived ; 2 with the sole
1 In his admirable publication Devia Cypria, Mr. D. G. Hogarth raises
the whole question of Phoenician influence in Cyprus, saying Indeed as
research has tended more and more to minimise the part played by the
latter (Phoenicians) in Cyprian economy, and to reject their claim to be
the importers even of the great goddess, or the founders of her temples,
so western influence must be relegated to the days of Evagoras." To
this Mr. Hogarth adds in a note, where he speaks with the utmost know
ledge of the facts, since he superintended the excavations at Old Paphos
" It will be remembered that we found no Phoenician relics at Old Paphos
at all ; nor have any been found at Amathus, Salamis, Lapethus, or indeed
(except in isolated instances) anywhere but at Citium and Idalium." This
is all very strong negative evidence, nor is the late use of the Ionian alphabet
more positive. Really positive evidence seems required to refute Herodotus
and others who put Phoenician cults at Old Paphos, and who doubtless
had before them avenues of information for ever closed to us. They con
stitute the only evidence at hand to show what intelligent men believed in
those days about the origin of the worship of Aphrodite at Paphos. We are
beginning to have a certain amount of evidence which they lacked, and it
is becoming plain to me that Aphrodite united to the Phoenician strain,
that fixes her character, peculiarities derived neither from the Phoenicians
nor from the Greeks. The only possible way in which these new and im
portant facts can eventually achieve due recognition is to have them stated
at this stage of the investigation by one who denies the Phoenician origin
of the goddess. Such a statement Mr. Hogarth, who inclines to that view,
has been good enough to make in a letter to me full of valuable suggestions
on many points. For his account of the Hittite origin of Aphrodite, see
Appendix VII. below.
2 The condition in which the ruins of the temple of Paphian Aphrodite
have been found is so lamentable that it would be a mockery to speak of
it as a surviving monument. See below, Appendix VI.
vii LACK OF GREEK MONUMENTS 283
exception of a few bits from Roman times and some few very
noteworthy medieval churches and ruined castles. A century
will hardly be required, at the rate of dilapidation now observ
able ; in less than that time even these will have disappeared,
and there will be no reading of the past elsewhere than in
tombs used many times and rifled by many generations of
men who were for the most part ignorant and superstitious.
That the Greeks, who did so much building of durable
sort, should have left no monuments in Cyprus worth
mentioning is a matter of surprise, because of the early date
of their first occupation of various parts of the island.
But, in spite of this early occupation, it cannot be denied
that the Greeks have never been justified at any time in the
past as much as they are now in calling Cyprus a Greek island.
The monuments in this land were sure to perish. They
were never built by a people rooted in the soil, and some
new master always came who did not know and had no care
for the buildings left by those whom he dislodged. The
site of Salamis and Famagosta best illustrates this curious
state of things. Farthest north lay the Greek colony of
Salamis. This was abandoned for the medieval walled city
about five miles to the south of it, Famagosta a town with
churches innumerable and a cathedral, as well as the most
wonderfully complete fortifications. Famagosta is now an
untenanted simulacrum of the commercial glories of the
days of Italian supremacy in Cyprus, and not quite a mile
farther south lies Varoschia, where the living successors of the
Salaminians and Famagostans of old now congregate. It is
as if we found a ruined city at the battery end of Manhattan
Island and deserted tenements at 23d Street, because the
traffic of New York had been transferred to the neighbour
hood of the Harlem River.
284 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
The moral to be drawn from this digression is that the
circumstances of Cyprus, and the native pursuits of the
Phoenicians there and elsewhere alike, will prepare us for
the scantiest yield of Phoenician remains on sites where
they are known l to have lived for many years.
I have said that Cyprus was just the place where Greek
and Phoenician influences could meet and mingle without
the interference of surrounding circumstances to give pre
dominance to either. This is so true in essential matters
that even the date of the Greek colonisation of Cyprus
stretches far enough back to come near the earliest occupa
tion of Cyprus by Phoenicians. Kittim (Larnaca-Citium)
preceded the Greek occupation ; but there are stories which
1 This knowledge is neither derived from monuments nor confirmed in
any appreciable degree, as regards Paphos and several other Phoenician
abiding places, by archaeological discoveries. See above, note i p. 282,
where Mr. Hogarth s striking testimony is quoted. But still undoubted
traces of a Phoenician occupation have been found at Citium and Idalium,
and their presence at this last place gives a trace of their close connection
with the goddess there worshipped. Furthermore, the oldest portion of
the temple of Aphrodite at Paphos (see Appendix) might perhaps prove to
be of Phoenician construction, if we were fortunate enough to know any
thing sufficiently definite about Phoenician building. These slight clues
derived from excavation and archaeological research help us toward cer
tainty when the early traditions connecting Cyprus with the Phoenicians
are duly taken into account. To begin with Homer, the Odyssey mentions
Cyprus five times, and the Iliad only once ; but Aphrodite is mentioned as
Cypris a name unknown to the Odyssey five times in the Iliad. Thus
Cyprus was well known to the Homeric mind ; and Aphrodite, in spite of
her Greek father Zeus and mother Dione, was habitually severed from her
Olympian peers, and associated with Cyprus. Now Cyprus is plainly
associated in the Odyssey with Phoenicia and Egypt (iv. 83), and in the
Homeric Hymn to Dionysus, the Tyrsenian (Phoenician) pirate talks of
taking his captive to Egypt or to Cyprus (v. 28), and thus bears testimony
to the intimate home relations between Cyprus and the Phoenicians.
Plainly if the Homeric mind had been as deeply interested in the history as in
the worship of Aphrodite, we should have had from Homer what Herodotus
finally gives us, a statement that the Phoenicians brought the goddess s
worship to Cyprus. Homer knows nothing of the goddess s birth in
Cyprus. This came in the Homeric Hymns and in Hesiod. The mention
of Cyprus in connection with Aphrodite by Herodotus and later writers is
familiar, and is often alluded to in other portions of this chapter.
vii AGAPENOR AT PAPHOS AND IN ARCADIA 285
leave it doubtful if Old Paphos may not have known Greeks
as well as Phoenicians in its earliest days.
The Arcadian chieftain Agapenor naively qualified
by a Lusignan chronicler 1 as "Lieutenant-general des
Navires du Roy Agamemnon," " King Agamemnon s lord
high admiral " founded Paphos on his way home from
the sack of Troy. This Paphos of Agapenor is probably
the later New Paphos, a town commercially far more suc
cessful than the older and Phoenician Old Paphos on the
hill not far away ; but still, our confused informant Pausanias
declares that Agapenor established the worship and the
temple of Aphrodite at Paphos, and adds by way of making
confusion worse confounded that this Paphian worship
instituted by Agapenor had until then been maintained at
Golgoi, another place in Cyprus. But testimony of superior
weight to that of Pausanias tells us that the first worship of
Aphrodite at Old Paphos was Phoenician. Only it evidently
came very early and very closely in contact with the adven
turous Greeks. Much or little as Agapenor may have done
for the worship of the goddess at Paphos, he certainly
did as much for it in Arcadia, the temple of Aphrodite
Paphia at Tegea in south-western Arcadia was of Agapenor s
founding. It is worth noticing carefully how inevitable was
the acceptance by Greece of this originally Assyrian goddess.
Arcadia is at the centre of the mountainous Peloponnesus,
and yet to this heart of the Highlands of Greece came from
opposite quarters the same eastern and alien goddess. The
1 Brother Stephen of Lusignan in the very much fuller French version
published by himself of his villainously printed Chorograffia et breve
historia universale dell isola di Cipro princ ipiando al tempo di Nocperin-
sino al 1572, per il R. P. Lettore Fr. Stephano Lusignano di Cipro dell
ordine de Predicatori. Bologna, 1573. For a further account of this
book see Appendix VIII.
286 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
temple at Tegea was founded from Cyprus (Paphos) l in the
East, whereas in the opposite and north-western corner of
Arcadia a temple of Aphrodite was founded in the inacces
sible district of Psophis, and founded too from what then
were the uttermost parts of the West. The Psophidian
temple was due to the zeal of worshippers of the goddess
at the ancient shrine on Mount Eryx, in north-western
Sicily. 2 A third Phoenician foundation (where recent
diggings 3 have discovered next to nothing at all) was far
nearer to the heart of Greece than eastern Paphos or
western Eryx, the island of Cythera from which Aphro
dite drew one of her sweetest names, Cytherea. 4 Strange to
1 Paus. VIII. liii. 3 ; cf. ibid. v. 2.
2 Paus. VIII. xxiv. i and 6.
3 These were made with his accustomed skill by Dr. Schliernann.
4 This epithet of Aphrodite has had a surprising effect upon the
beautiful name of that beautiful corner of Cyprus named Cythrea. Brother
Stephen of Lusignan and many others transform it by a slight change in
its last syllable but one into Cythera. A more forbidding spot, Mount
Cithaeron, has also attempted to usurp the place of Cythera in Aphrodite s
affections (cf. Bartolommeo da li Sonetti on Cythera). See Boccaccio s
Teseide, VII. stanza 43.
O bella Iddea del gran Vulcano Sposa
Per cui s allegra il monte Citerone.
This is reproduced by Chaucer, Knight s Tale, 1363,
Fairest of faire, o lady myn Venus,
Daughter of Jove and spouse to Vulcanus,
Thou goddess of the mount of Citheroun.
Again Dryden, in his Palamon and Arcite, following Chaucer, gives a de
scription of beautiful paintings where the Cithaeron again does duty for
Cythera,
For there th Idalian Mount and Citheron,
The court of Venus, was in colours drawn.
Last of all, in a recent writer we find the old confusion reasserting itself in
a description of Paris society : "It was a charming world of fancy and
caprice ; a world of milky clouds floating in an infinite azure, and bearing
a mundane Venus to her throne on a Frenchified Cithaeron." It is need
less to say that no place less belongs to Venus Aphrodite than the gloomy
wilderness of Boeotian Cithaeron where the Maenads tore Pentheus in
pieces, and whither Oedipus was sent as a babe to be exposed.
vii APHRODITE ALWAYS PAPHIAN 287
say, there is no record of any considerable influence exer
cised from Cythera upon the worship of Aphrodite in
Greece. From the West, beyond the foundation at Psophis
and some probable influence upon Greeks in Sicily, little
or no influence reached Greece, and therefore Paphos in
Cyprus was the centre of the worship of Grecian Aphrodite,
first and last.
Accordingly, if we would come under the Grecian spell
of Phoenician Aphrodite, we must leave Greece proper and
go to the southward Cyprus, which is neither in Europe
nor in Asia ; neither of the East nor of the West ; not
Greek nor yet Phoenician. There we must go from the
harbour of Limassol by the shortest road to Old Paphos,
for although not wholly Greek and not wholly Phoenician,
Aphrodite is Paphian l always and entirely.
Let us approach the island and the way from Limassol
to Paphos with no undue anticipations. Rifled tombs,
broken fragments, foundations half effaced are the reward
which students of Cypriote antiquity chiefly receive. Bear
ing this in mind, we may well linger a moment, when we
are four miles from Limassol on the road to Old Paphos, at
Colossi to admire a splendid square castle, 2 not utterly ruined
as yet. Here the Knights Commanders dwelt for many
years. 3
1 Od. viii. 363, Horn. Hymn, iv. 59 ff. ; Eurip. Bacch. 385 and 406, etc.
2 See a photograph of it published by the Hellenic Society, Appendix
XI. i. 89.
3 Nothing seems to me more discouraging than the attempt to photo
graph, or rather to orthograph, the shades of popular mispronunciation
where a name has its established form. Accordingly, I adhere with M. de
Mas Latrie to Colossi, leaving others to choose between Colossois and
Colossin. The mystifying name of Colossi given as Colosso on the un
published map made by Leonida Attar in 1542, and now in the Museo
Correr at Venice is said to derive from the Colossos of Rhodes.
This may be the case, but the name certainly has nothing whatever to do
with the Rhodian Knights Hospitallers, through whom Colossi became
288 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
The character of the coast-shapes and landscapes as you
journey on past Colossi to Old Paphos is noteworthy,
because of a contrast with what comes when Paphos is
reached. Around the monastery of St. Nicholas on the
promontory of Curias, before Colossi is reached may be
found vast low-lying areas close to the beach of the sea.
Here the strangest shapes may be seen fashioned out of
very soft limestone by the action of the rains sometimes,
and sometimes of the waves. Vast arches reach out to dim
and shapeless buttresses, while the sea dashes up under the
arch and often covers wholly its seaward support. This is
nature s architecture, and the like of it may be seen in
various lands, as, for instance, on the Californian coast near
Santa Cruz. So friable is the limestone of Cyprus that it
famous. The Knights Templars had the whole of Cyprus for part of a
year, built the cathedral at Nicosia in part, and made strong castles
at Larnaca and elsewhere, but they never held Colossi. Before its
grant to the Knights of Rhodes, a Frenchman named Nicholas Garin
owned it, and he adopted from it the feudal title of Garin de Kolossi
or du Colos. The only analogy that suggests itself to confirm the
derivation from the Colossus is an insufficient one. Padre Coronelli s
book on Morea and Negroponte has on its title-page "Si vende alia
Libreria del Colosso sul Ponte di Rialto." Nicolas Garin may after all
have got the title " Du Colos" by trade associations, and then have
named his estate in order to derive a feudal title from it. After
purchasing all outstanding rights, Hugues I. of Lusignan was the
final grantor to the Knights of these estates in entirety, his father
or uncle having already given some portions. The Hospitallers finally
appointed a commandery for Colossi, and made it the centre of manage
ment for all their rich possessions in the island. These they held for
three centuries until the Turks came in 1571. The Sultan appropriated
most of the Hospitallers lands. He had good reason to covet Colossi, for
its commandery wine so called from the Knights and their commandery
(preceptorery was the earlier polysyllable) still enjoys a well-deserved
celebrity. To be sure it is now made unpalatable to some by the tarred
skins which serve for bottles. On this subject see Gaudry, Recherches, p.
330. See also in Mr. Lang s Cyprus , chap. ix. , where he speaks of the
Commanderia wine as used in France and Italy. Whoever has tasted a
good old vintage of this wine will rejoice that Madeira has been restocked
since \hephylloxera from the district of Colossi. Nothing more like Madeira
exists than the wine of Colossi.
vii FROM LIMASSOL TO PAPHOS 289
seems ever ready to vanish away. There is, in fact, a
melting process continually in progress all over the island.
Hence vast caves near the earth s surface which invited the
successive occupants of Cyprus to use them for places of
burial. 1 Hence also the habit of hollowing out in the
willing stone all manner of tombs and passages leading
from subterranean vault to hidden chamber. The ground
of Cyprus sounds hollow everywhere under the hoofs of the
mules, the whole landscape sometimes seeming but a mask
covering over the bones of men long dead.
Close to Colossi and the castle of the Knights Com
manders is Episcopia or Piscopia, associated with a branch
of the Venetian Cornaro family and with one of Titian s
masterpieces. 2 But it is time to draw near to Paphos, which
is after all only a day s journey on muleback from Limassol.
As we approach, the limestone hills cover themselves with a
brighter green. Near Pissouri and Old Paphos, now called
Couclia, are sudden whims in the surface of the soil. Green
slopes lead more or less precipitously downward, sometimes
to a field shaped like an amphitheatre, sometimes to a
meadow nearly square. These lower places cover them
selves with shrubs, and if the early day brought showers, as
it did when we were riding that way, the golden slanting
sun of eventide shoots pleasantly through their dripping
leafage, making them sparkle, as it were, with the winning
smile of golden Aphrodite. Cheered by this glimmering
show of welcome, we turned around the jutting foot of a
wooded hill, and came upon the last stream to be forded
1 More than once I have seen daylight at the farther end of a cave
near the top of a ridge, which had evidently been melting away by this
process. These caves are often used for sheep-folds, which go by the old
name of mandra.
2 In the Frari Church at Venice.
U
290 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
that day. Then in a half-ruined castle called the Tschiflik
or farmstead, which surmounted the upward swerve of the
Paphian hill, we were most warmly welcomed by the English
excavators, already beginning to wind up their business at
Paphos, and preparing to hand over the site to the charge
of Government.
The next morning we had before us the site of the temple
of Aphrodite at Old Paphos, discovered and fully under
stood for the first time since the day when St. Barnabas l
called down upon it the wrath of heaven, and by a judgment
of earthquake and fire put an end to many abominations.
To discover precisely what earthquake the saint inflicted
would be vain ; there have been so many before and since
upon this luckless spot. 2 There is no lack of founders and
builders for this home of Paphian Aphrodite ; they are as
numerous almost as are the writers who tell of the temple s
1 The martyrdom of St. Barnabas took place in Cyprus. See in John
Meursius 1 unpublished MS. revision of his well-known book on Cyprus,
a note which refers to this at the end of chap. v. in book II. : Nee fecit
tantum martyres Cyprus, sed et dedit. In his erat Barnabas apostolus
de quo dixi.
2 There was a serious earthquake here under Augustus, in the twenty-
seventh year of his reign, cf. Eusebius copied by Abbas Uspergensis and
Marianus Scotus. Meursius, Cyp. II. xx. and I. xviii., quotes Seneca, Epist.
xci., Nat. Quaest. vi. 26, and also Sibylline oracles, III. and IV. Under
Vespasian, in the ninth year of his reign, three towers of the temple fell.
Hieronymus (note on the lost text of Eusebius, lib. II. Chron. given by Meur
sius, I. xviii. ) quotes Bartholomaeus Saligniacus,//z ^rar?V iv. cap. 6 : Paphos
ruinis plena videtur, templis tamen frequens. This is a century after the
Acts, where see chap. xiii. ; see also Bede on the Acts. Fortunately of
late years there has been a cessation. In 1830 the unlucky Dr. Ludwig Ross
was badly shaken while in Cyprus, and has given an account of the adven
ture. He was at Dalin at the time, and he says: "Am andern Morgen
(February 21) erwachte ich schon um fiinf Uhr durch ein langes an-
haltendes Erdbeben das mit leisen zitternden Schwingungen anfing und mit
einer heftigen Erschiitterung endigte, und dessen ganze Dauer wohl eine
halbe Minute betrug. " Later, while at Hieroskipou (Strabo s lepoK-rjiria ;
see Hogarth s Devia Cypria, p. 41), two miles east of New Paphos, he
says: "iiberhaupt soil dieser Theil der Insel bis Limissos den Erdstossen
sehr ausgesetzt sein."
vir CINYRAS A T PAPHOS 291
foundation. The first builders up of the Paphian sanctuary
appear, in fact, to have been as plentiful as the earthquakes
that shook the temple down.
With the legendary name of Cinyras the most widely
recognised of these first founders connects itself the
Eastern pedigree of Aphrodite. Aphrodite came originally
from Assyria, and it is therefore no surprise to hear from
one source that Cinyras, usually regarded as from Syria, was
king of the Assyrians. This wonderful Cinyras was the
great ancestor of the priestly family or guild that long ruled
over the district and sanctuary at Old Paphos. The collec
tive name applied here was that of the Cinyradae or de
scendants of Cinyras. The most interesting of the sons of
Cinyras is the beautiful and ill-fated Adonis, who, among
other things, 1 is the Assyrian Tammuz brought to the western
coasts of Syria and Phoenicia. In various legends this son
of Cinyras, Tammuz-Adonis, plays the part of Dionysus and
Persephone in one. Around him gather the sorrow and the
joy of the yearly death and yearly revival of nature s growth.
The beautiful legend of Aphrodite s love for Adonis
how he was wounded when engaged in the chase, and how
Aphrodite, filled with grief on hearing the sad tidings,
made haste to the Idalian fields of Cyprus and found there
her dying love appears to be a story of later growth.
It was connected with the inland sanctuary of Aphrodite
in Cyprus, having little or nothing to do with Old Paphos.
Amathus, the third Cyprian centre for the goddess s worship,
was, like Old Paphos, on the sea coast. There, we hear,
was a temple where Aphrodite was worshipped in common
1 I am well aware that it is quite possible to bear too exclusively in
mind the eastern affinities of Adonis. He is as close to the Phrygian
worship of Atthis and Cybele as he is to the Phoenician Ishtar and Tammuz,
closer perhaps.
292 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
with Adonis, the two forming a godhead, both male and
female. Perhaps this dual worship at Amathus was of
distinctly Phoenician origin, and it is possible that the Adonis
of Amathus was an earlier aspect nearer to what is found
in the annals of Ninivite religion of the charming and
tragical Tammuz-Adonis.
But the father of Adonis, Cinyras, is by no means
disposed of in the slight mention made above. Pindar
speaks of " Cinyras whom the golden-haired Apollo dearly
loved, the dutiful servant of Aphrodite." The men of
Cyprus, so Pindar says, were never tired of telling various
stories about Cinyras. This native tendency to tell any
thing that came into your head about Cinyras maintained
itself even till late Christian days. Malevolence and
fanaticism then combined with a justified reprobation of
Paphian licentiousness to frame a story that Aphrodite
was only a criminally beloved paramour of Cinyras. In
honour of this mortal and misguided woman Cinyras
built a temple at Old Paphos, where her tomb and his are
still shown to-day. The only religious fact to be derived
from this story is an important one, as will appear later,
i.e. that in the precinct of Paphian Aphrodite at Old Paphos
the tomb 1 of that goddess and of Cinyras were con
spicuous.
In giving some idea of the medley of legends and tales
that centred about the name of Cinyras we must resign
all hope of gaining a consistent idea of his personality.
Avalanches of mythology have swept down upon him from
all quarters, so that he is but a remembered name and not
1 On the various aspects of the Greek Aphrodite that make of her a
goddess of the land of the dead, see Dr. W. H. Roscher, in his own
Ausfurliches Lexicon, p. 402.
vii UBIQUITY OF CINYRAS 293
a person. He is connected with the Trojan war, during which
he was king of Cyprus. Thus Homer s conception of him
lends him no preternatural powers, no divine attributes.
He was Agamemnon s distant admirer and benefactor who
sent him armour :
Tidings he heard in Cyprus and fame that Achaeans
Planned to set sail in their ships for Troy and its capture,
Wherefore he gave the breastplate in order to please Agamem
non.
All this is creditable, but the tale which arose shortly
after Homer s day was less creditable to Cinyras heart
than to his head. Bound by oath to supply a certain
number of ships against Troy, the crafty Paphian monarch
did supply just the number promised ; only, as their size
and equipment were not nominated in the bond, it pleased
his royal thriftiness to send ships of microscopic dimensions
fashioned out of clay. 1
But after all the real Cinyras, founder of Old Paphos,
lived long before the Trojan war, and was far more than
the obsequious admirer of Agamemnon, far higher minded
than this crafty evader of the solemn terms of a treaty.
Ages before the Trojan war he lived, first founder, priest,
and king, not only of the sanctuary of Aphrodite in Old
Paphos, but of one at Byblus in Syria Byblus, where the
goddess was revered, as at Paphos, under the form of a
cone of white stone. 2 Byblus is quite as closely identified
in fact with the goddess in the history of Syrian religion,
as is Paphos in that of Greek religion. A name well known
1 Probably some primitive record of ritual observance lurks beneath
this pointless tale.
2 Maximus Tyrius, Dissert, viii. 7 : ITa0/ois i] ^v AQpodirr) raj
j,a OUK &v et/cd&lt;7&lt;us AXXy Tip ?) Trvpa.fj.l5i \evKrj, i] 8t
294 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
of us all, that of Pygmalion, is connected with Cinyras. The
two were kinsmen; and their bond of kinship, so far as
mythology has worked it out, consisted in their both being
originators of skilled processes in the various arts that adorn
the mind and the life of man. Both play a Promethean
part in dowering mankind. Cinyras, for instance, invented
mining, bricks, and various agricultural implements, 1 and
Pygmalion became celebrated for his skill in sculpture.
Cinyras is so closely identified with Cyprus, in spite of the
tie binding him to Byblus, that he is spoken of as coming
from almost every country which contributed to the early
peopling of the island. He was from Cilicia as well as
from Syria and Assyria, and he was beloved of Aphrodite.
This glory he shared in legend with Adonis, and is half
identified with him. Apollo delighted in him, and yet
there was a rivalry in musical performances wherein Cinyras
taking for the nonce the role of Marsyas in the Thraco-
Phrygian story 2 was worsted by his protector Apollo.
As for this musical episode in his career, it has a greater
importance, some think, than would casually be attached to
it. The theory is that the name Cinyras thinly disguises
that of a musical instrument, associated with the royal
founder and priest of Old Paphos. This name and the
proverbial wealth of a Midas, along with the story of his
birth in Cilicia, have attached themselves to him from
Asia Minor, the land of the Phrygian flute and the home
of soft Lydian airs.
If it were possible to unravel aright all the legends of
Cinyras, the whole early and unknown history of Cyprus
1 Tegulas invenit Cinyras . . . et metalla aeris, utrumque in insula
Cypro, item forcipem, martulum, vectem, incudem [Pliny, Nat. Hist.
vii. 195). 2 See p. 92 above.
vii THE TEMPLE ON THE HILL 295
might be understood. For just as the three touches above
mentioned come from Asia Minor, so from Phoenicia in
part, and largely again from Phrygia in Asia Minor, comes
his close connection with Adonis. As the case stands we
have only the tantalising satisfaction of knowing how many
and of what divergent origin were the threads that time
and the fruitful invention of story-tellers and poets have
woven into the variegated yarns concerning Cinyras. Let
the whole of them serve as a background for the worship
and the presence of the goddess Aphrodite at Old Paphos.
Let us fling upon the throne of Paphian Aphrodite the
richly variegated web of early legends, and then when she
shall have taken her seat, and with smiles shall be admiring
her own loveliness in an upraised mirror-disc, we may call
to her as burning Sappho called of old, " Immortal Aphro
dite throned in many hues." 1 The hues lent by early
legend are always pure of quality and soft in tone, and even
Aphrodite s beauty is enhanced by them.
Now that we know the worst and the best of the first
founder of the Paphian temple of Paphian Aphrodite, let us
look at the site 2 where he builded her temple of old. He
built it, after the manner of the Assyrians and Phoenicians,
in a high place. The hill of Old Paphos is distant about
one mile from the sea. Half of this mile is taken up by a
gradual slope from the hill s summit to its base. The sea
lies south-west of the temple-site, and in the far distance, at
the end of a gradual but constant upheaval of range upon
range of hills, rise the heights around Mount Troodos, itself
not visible from here.
dOdvar A0p65tra.
2 For a detailed account of the remains there discovered, see Appendix
VI. below.
296 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
A gentle slope,- strewn with bits of limestone ranging in
colour from yellow to gray ; close to its brow a small and
uncleanly village, on the east and west of which are the
beds of inconsiderable streams, such is the Paphian site,
and such the modern village of Couclia (Couvocles in Old
French). The prevailing tint in early May, when we visited
it, was a yellow which might have verged towards brown
had it not been for a spare crop of grain that invisibly
warmed the surface tint. The curious eye peering eastward
is rewarded by a vision of palms. These and the peculiarly
picturesque discomfort of the squalid village houses assure
you that you are neither in England nor in New England.
Just here the friable limestone, beaten on other coasts
near by into fantastic cliff- shapes, takes unnoticeable
rounded forms or clothes itself with soil. A stretch of
fertile bottomland reaches from the foot of the Paphian hill
south-westward to the strand of the sea. At a distance of
about three hundred yards from the water s edge there is a
drop of ten feet, and again at half that distance a second
drop of about the same number of feet. Thus was the
sheer rock rounded and the higher reach of meadow-land
terraced down to the verge of the sea for a gradual ascent
to the high place of Aphrodite at Old Paphos. Across
this green and flower-strewn meadow-carpet moved the new
born goddess from the surface of the wave. Thither, says
Hesiod, she had been gently borne drifting eastward from
Cythera ; or, as others might say, westward from Syria.
Whichever of these directions is assigned to the coming of
the goddess, one detail all legends have in common, i.e.
that Aphrodite was born here in Cyprus, and her name is
Cypris or Cyprogeneia Cyprus-born.
As a Greek goddess, swaying the gods on Olympus
vii APHRODITE S BIRTH AT PAPHOS 297
and ruling according to her good pleasure the hearts of
all mortals, Aphrodite was born at Paphos in Cyprus.
Speculations about her history before her birth at Paphos
did not enter into the devout minds of her worshippers.
For them she was what the unhappy Phaedra calls her,
Cyprian Aphrodite of the sea Cypris Pontia. Nor was this
Paphian birth without an enormous influence upon the
larger world outside of Greece. There was a something in
the Paphian Aphrodite that her eastern original lacked, and
this something can by a process of exclusion be proved to
have been a distinctively Greek aspect of her divinity.
Aphrodite s birth at Paphos made her at last accessible to
purely Greek influences, and qualified her to play a great
part in the religious history of the world. It was perhaps a
misfortune that Greek influences never wholly divorced her
from the manners and customs that finally attached to her
in the East, as a Syrian and Phoenician divinity. At all
events much that was outrageously gross and uncivilising
in her latter-day worship at Corinth and elsewhere in Greece
is traceable to the direct influences exercised from the East
by her later and unclean worship there. We can, therefore,
agree with a gifted American scholar, 1 who, under the
happy inspiration of words associated with Plato s name, 2
has said that "the Greek received nothing from the East
that he did not make doubly his by the beauty with which
he invested it, and the Aphrodite Urania is as far above the
Oriental personification of the conceptive principle of nature,
as the graceful image of Venus issuing from the shell . . .
excels the clumsy merman Dagon whose hands and feet
1 Essays and Studies, by Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, 1890.
2 Epinomis, 487 E, 6n Trep &v "EXX^i/es fiapfiapuv Trapa\df3w(ri, /caX-
\Lov TOVTO eis rcXos
298 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
were cut off upon the threshold of his temple when he lay a
prostrate deformity before the ark of the Lord at Ashdod."
The something which stamps Aphrodite as a specifically
Greek version of the often perverted Eastern goddess is
certainly that which made her admirable above her eastern
originals, and secured her the adoration of all the world. 1
The Greek strain in Paphian Aphrodite is almost at war
with the sombre jealousy which never really left her because
it attached itself to her Assyrian nativity. Greece gave to
her a fresh and breezy sanity and an inborn grace that
Euripides describes so perfectly, calling her peerless among
the gods in just this her quality of qualities. Eucharis^ he
calls her, gently, sweetly, gracefully charming. She had, as
Euripides worshipped her, beyond all other goddesses the
charm that wins and never loses, the grace that woos and
wearies not, the beauty that waxes and never wanes, the
smile that attaches and never repels.
Somewhere Euripides describes the only ray of hope
left to lighten the darkness of despair as the Aphrodite
of woes. That hold upon hope and help which leads
a man in the midst of desperate flames to wait one
precious moment longer before he flings himself head
long to destruction is the Aphrodite of his woeful state,
whose power subdues the wildness of sudden impulse
and saves his life. Here is the Aphrodite Sosandra,
rescuer of men, the Notre Dame de Bon Secours, wor
shipped on the Athenian Acropolis, where her statue by
1 The very transformation in meaning which Aphrodite s epithet Urania
underwent before our very eyes, so to speak, is full of the Greek spirit which
purified and ennobled. Herodotus identifies Aphrodite -Urania with
Mylitta (i. 131 and 199), with whose coarse rites Plato s Urania has
nothing in common. The real equivalent of Mylitta, so far as these rites
go, would be Aphrodite Pandemos. See Robert s Preller, pp. 354 ff.
vii THE GREEK APHRODITE 299
Calamis cheered and uplifted the sinking hearts of those
who came to worship. Hers was a graciousness so bountiful
and subtly winning that its spell cannot and never will be
broken. To this degree of spiritual nobility had the Greeks
at Athens in their pious meditations brought the charm of
Aphrodite, known in simpler Homer s day as her charmed
girdle, of which he says :
Broidered and fashioned therein were all means of enchant
ment,
Love-longing was there and commerce of love, and there was
love s chatter,
Words and cajolements that steal away wits, even men s that
are wisest.
The almost wholly physical charm of her Cestus was not,
as Homer conceived it, absolutely inseparable from Aphro
dite. She alone possessed it, but if she chose she could
lend it, and so it was that Hera borrowed it of her. On
the other hand, the later and more spiritual charm which
shone through disasters and rescued sorrowing men was
inseparable from her. No goddess, not even Hera, Queen
of Olympus, could borrow this, or rescue as she could by
the gracious subtlety of her smiling love. Not Euripides
only but Pindar the sublime saw and spoke of the pecu
liarly Greek quality in Aphrodite. Only Pindar, as in so
many other cases, beheld the more solemn and serious
aspect of this great truth. That principle of measure and
retributive compensation which bids despair despair not,
but lures a desperate man to hope, revealing in the very
presence of woe glimpses of grace and showing the face of
joy to come assumes another and more solemn guise when
men are glad and fortune favours them. A pang there is
in fullest moments of supreme joy which prompts us to
300 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
beware, a sense of penalties to come which visits him
whose joy might grow excessive, and whose pleasures make
him lose the consciousness of duty to be done. This throb
of pain in pleasure s midst, this pausing in mid-course of
the forward fling of gladness, is perhaps but the negative
pole that should be coupled with the saving graciousness of
Aphrodite Sosandra s smile. She saves man from himself
both in sorrow and in joy. And so Pindar, in his ninth
Pythian ode, agrees with Euripides, telling how " Silver-foot
Aphrodite tempered the loves of Apollo and Cyrene with
awe," with a sense of some limit not to be exceeded. This
awe-struck sense of shame at the thought of too great excess
Pindar has called Aidos, and Euripides has personified the
impulses which violate it in speaking of
Eager Loves that past all measure fling.
From these the chorus of women in the Medea of Euripides
beg Aphrodite to deliver them. They pray to her for
deliverance from jealousy such as has devastated Medea s
life and happiness. They beseech her to " choose with
critic glance " the " wedded happiness of women."
And so, with all the purity of her natal element, Aphro
dite rises up before the high moods of imaginative medita
tion vouchsafed to Euripides and to Pindar. Yet Euripides
does not forget her original function as a nature-goddess,
as another beautiful song from his Medea well shows :
Cypris, when from fair Cephissus downward streaming
wave
Draughts of water, so tis said, to quaff she sometime drew.
Breathed adown the countryside blithe winds that softly blew,
Crowned her locks with roses red that sweetest perfume
gave,
Sent to second wisdom, Loves all righteousness to save.
vii THE ROMAN AND ASSYRIAN GODDESS 301
These are some of the higher notes, the more purely
Grecian, and therefore the more beautiful and nobler
aspects which made the cult of Aphrodite, when it spread
over all the Roman world, a benefit to civilisation. Would
that only her nobler part had ever found allegiance in the
pagan world. For better for worse, for richer or for poorer,
the Roman Emperors took Venus Aphrodite as their own
and made her mistress of the world. Their veneration sprang
from no idealised adoration of the highest range of inspira
tion derivable from her, they were prompted rather by con
siderations heraldic, genealogical, and theological. It was
therefore not purely an accident that made Caesar s watch
word on the field of Pharsalia "Venus victrix," for such an
accident, without being deeply significant, reveals the presence
of Aphrodite in the thoughts of those who fashioned Rome.
This being the case, it is no matter of surprise that one
of the very noblest and broadest conceptions of the goddess
in the plenitude of her imperial power should be that of a
Roman poet, Lucretius. For him she is more than the
source of all joy on earth and in heaven. She is the
principle of life ; without her earth can have no flowers, the
woods can have no foliage, and the birds sing only at her
will. " Without thee," he cries, " nothing that is can ever
attain existence."
This is really not very far from that simple and touching
conception which was the very primal foundation of immor
tality for the goddess Venus Aphrodite, the pure and noble
delineation of the Assyrian goddess Ishtar in a poem far older
than that of Roman Lucretius. This poem was found stamped
upon tablets of burned clay in the library of Sardanapalus
or Assurbanipal at Niniveh. The goddess left this upper
earth to seek among the dead below her Tammuz dearly
302 APHRODITE AT PAPHOS vn
loved and lately lost. No sooner had the wondrous Ishtar
disappeared from earth than life in the upper air was
brought to a pause, and the most unspeakable distress
made the whole universe wail and faint. Ishtar, waiting at
the dust-bestrewn portals of Urugal, laments her case in the
most exquisite strains of the old Assyrian poem :
All love from earthly life with me departed,
With me to tarry in the gates of death . . .
And chilled shall cheerless men now draw slow breath.
I left in sadness life which I had given,
I turned from gladness and I walked with woe.
I search for Tammuz, whom harsh fate laid low.
The darkling pathway o er the restless waters
Of seven seas that circle death s domain
I trod, and followed after earth s sad daughters
Torn from their loved ones and ne er seen again.
Here must I enter in, here make my dwelling
With Tammuz in the mansion of the dead,
Driven to Tammuz house by love compelling,
And hunger for the sight of that dear head.
O er husbands will I weep, whom death has taken,
Whom fate in manhood s strength from life has swept,
Leaving on earth their living wives forsaken,
O er them with groans shall bitter tears be wept.
And I will weep o er wives, whose short day ended
Ere in glad offspring joyed their husbands eyes ;
O er them shall tearful lamentations rise.
And I will weep o er babes who left no brothers,
Young lives to the ills of age by hope opposed,
One moment s life by death unending closed. 1
1 For a more complete version of this with others, made from a literal
version of the cuneiform text kindly supplied me by my friend and former
colleague Dr. Lyon, see The Story of Assyria, where the gifted author,
Mme. Ragozin, does me the honour of printing my versions in an appendix.
vii APHRODITE AND DEMETER 303
Here is a large and oriental luxury of grief, a tragedy and
mystery of woe which is ill suited to the smiling Aphrodite
of the Greeks, and which stirs far deeper down the hearts
of men than even the Venus-Aphrodite of Lucretius. 1 The
truth is that there is no parallel easily found to the tragical
shudder that runs through every line of this Assyrian poem.
Among Greek divinities Demeter 2 rather than Aphrodite
represents this utterness of woe and this fulness of heart-
sympathy for the calamities of others.
The goddess Demeter even, when sorrow had all but
slain immortality within her, was rescued by the gracious
promise of hope in Aphrodite s smile ; and this may justify
us in maintaining once more that the Greek conception of
Aphrodite was that of a consoling goddess, the enemy of
despair, the harbinger of joys unlocked for, and the moder
ator of unruly pleasures.
This noble and consoling figure has dominated the
destinies of nations since history began. Arising among
the unknown tribes of Accad in the far-off east, she was
honoured and worshipped at Niniveh and Babylon, at Tyre
and Sidon and Carthage. Before the taint of monstrous
licentiousness had brought corruption upon her, she found
1 To this extent and in this sense I should incline to dissent from Pro
fessor Gildersleeve, who says, the worship of Aphrodite is no less pro
found while it is infinitely more graceful than the Oriental." With the
latter part of this I agree too thoroughly to be able to subscribe to the
former. Demeter s awkward and mysterious strains go together, and both
of them make her the Greek equivalent of the tragic Ishtar who laments
for Tarn muz.
2 Euripides, in the Helena, almost seems to have the Assyrian poem
before him in his beautiful song of the sorrows of Demeter-Cybele, who
falls fainting and lifeless on the snowdrifts of mountains in Asia, fainting
and lifeless because she finds not Persephone. The earth meanwhile is
stricken with barrenness. Until the Graces and Aphrodite sought her
there and ministered to her, there was no fruitfulness, no springs would
flow, and feasting fled from earth and forsook the gods even.
304 APHRODITE A T PAPHOS vn
from the purifying sea a new birth, and came to her rising
in Greece from Cyprian Paphos. When the power of self-
repression, with which the nobler thought of Greece asso
ciated Aphrodite, began to falter and fail, Rome saved the
sea-born goddess and her higher worship. Indeed the
Roman Mother Venus of Virgilian song was as intensely
kind, as irresistibly winning, as that most primally and
exclusively Greek goddess the darling daughter of Zeus
and Dione, the slender maid 1 who was worshipped and
feared by Sappho. Nor does the broader and more mature
as well as more oriental conception of Paphian Aphrodite,
into which this goddess of Sappho was finally merged, reach
quite the heights and depths of the all-nourishing mother
Venus to whom Lucretius makes melodious prayer.
Perhaps the poor Cypriote papissa or priest s wife was
not wrong in correcting the learned Ludwig Ross. He
spoke to her of a sanctuary of Aphrodite. " No," she said,
" not Aphroditissa ; it is the Holy Chrysopolitissa." 2 To her
is sacred a church on Aphrodite s Hill of Old Paphos. The
Mother of God surnamed the Golden has taken the place
once filled by Homer s golden Aphrodite.
fj-arep, OVTOL 5vva.fj.ai. Kpticrjv TOV icrrov
ircudos,
See Euripides, Helena, 1098 : K6pr] AIWPTJS K^TT/H, ^77 p
ray&gt;a TT]V \a\ov&lt;ri Xpvcro-
APPENDIX VI
THE TEMPLE AT OLD PAPHOS
THE irregular trapezium l which the temple and its con
tiguous buildings once occupied lies at some distance a
stone s throw, be it said from the brow of the hill. Be
fore this trapezium area is reached you come upon the
most remarkable remains upon the site. I cannot describe
these better than in the words of Mr. R. Elsey Smith. 2
" Starting from the south-west corner, and examining the
walls in detail as proposed, we find first of all a very large
massive wall extending for some eighty-five feet in a nearly
northerly direction, with a short return at the south end.
It consists of a basement of polygonal blocks mostly of
massive proportions brought to a fairly even face, and with
a carefully wrought and levelled upper bed, on which rests
a series of magnificent rectangular blocks, the largest of
which measures seven feet by over fifteen. These blocks
are of limestone, and have been laid with their beds
vertical, so that they have suffered severely from the effects
1 Excavations in Cyprus (1887-1888), reprinted from the Journal of
Hellenic Studies (1888). See pp. 58 and ff. , where Mr. Ernest Gardner
conclusively disposes of all plans previously published, and clearly sets
forth Mr. Elsey Smith s plan in connection with ancient authorities and
coins. For my own detailed account of the site and of Cesnola s so-called
plan, see Nation (Sept. 6 and 13, 1888).
a Ibid. See Mr. Elsey Smith s discussion of his own plan in the Journal
of Hellenic Studies as cited above. The plan is by his kind permission
here reproduced.
X
306 APPENDIX VI
of weather. The stones both of the basement and upper
parts of the wall are pierced with holes for the purpose of
hauling them ; the larger stones have two holes, but some
of the smaller ones are pierced with a single hole only.
In the upper stones these holes run from the vertical face at
one end in a quadrant form up and down to the upper and
lower beds of the stone ; in the basement stones, which of
course were below the pavement level, these holes generally
run from the face backward to the vertical joints. "
This remarkable and puzzling remnant is undoubtedly,
Mr. Elsey Smith and all others conclude, the oldest feature
discoverable at Couclia. Curiously enough it contains the
only evidence upon the whole site that there was any door
way in any particular place. The two socket -holes for
door-posts have two steps leading down to them. This
door was, however, much less than ten feet wide from post
to post, and can hardly have been the principal entrance
to any court, such as Mr. Elsey Smith thinks was possibly
enclosed by this the oldest structure at Old Paphos. 1 The
piercings in these huge monoliths are said strongly to
resemble what is discoverable upon the site of temples
presumably of Phoenician origin on the island of Malta.
Among the ruins of Sicilian Selinus, which was, like Old
Paphos, a meeting ground for Greeks and Phoenicians in
the earliest days, Ludwig Ross saw stones similarly pierced,
and he attributed them to Phoenician workmanship. Can
it be amiss to recall here the Phoenician method of pre
paring for the building of walls, as reported in the account
of the building of Solomon s temple ?
"And the house when it was in building was built of
stone made ready before it was brought thither ; so that
there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron
heard in the house while it was in building."
Piercings of some kind must have been made in the
1 Of course the theory is that all traces of the main door have dis
appeared. Wherever it was, it certainly was not the small door of which
traces remain.
THE TEMPLE AT OLD PAPHOS 307
quarry by Hiram s builders and stone squarers, otherwise it
would not have been possible to transport huge blocks and
put them in their place without leaving some projection
upon the blocks, which must then have been removed upon
the site itself by chiselling. This would have involved the
sound of hammer, of axe, or some tool of iron. The
Greek l way of getting stones in place was entirely different,
since they had no objection to hammering on the site. They
shaped the stones very accurately, but finished them only
roughly in the quarry. The final smooth finish, together
with the chiselling down of square projections left for a
hold in transportation, was done when the walls were up.
The first builders at Paphos, then, may have been Phoeni
cians, since they probably used the methods of Hiram s
builders, and not those of the Greeks.
A change not only in the manner of building walls but
in the way of finishing stones, and in the methods used
for their transportation, took place among the workmen at
Old Paphos before a stone of what became the temple of
Aphrodite was laid. The proof of this is ready at hand in
the remains of walls which are close to the supposably
Phoenician work just described in detail. Here are marks
(A) of an ancient reconstruction of parts of walls, and (B)
of an addition made at the same ancient date. All these
reconstructed parts including two rows of columns
indicate a new manner of workmanship. "The stones
employed," says Mr. Elsey Smith, 2 "are of smaller and
more regular dimensions . . . and they are very evenly
laid without mortar ; each stone has a broad draught along
the upper edge, and down the two sides of its outer face,
1 To understand this only a glance at the unfinished Propylaea of
Mnesicles at Athens is needful. The downward (westerly) face of
this building was so far finished that the square projections used for
transport have been chiselled off, but the smooth chiselling of the outward
surfaces has never been completed. The upward (easterly) face is left
wholly unfinished, and is still covered with the curious square projections
intact. See Appendix XI. i. 8 and 9.
2 Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1888, p. 48, at the bottom.
308 APPENDIX VI
leaving a rough panel in the centre." 1 This rough dressing
of the stone with a draught around the edge it commonly
goes around the whole edge is a mark of workmanship
which may have been Phoenician, and is probably not
Greek. The other technical details, however, show a
nearer approach to Greek workmanship.
In these early walls of two kinds some discover an
earlier temple which became in later and more magnificent
days an appendage to the enlarged sanctuary : something
which, for want of a better name, has been called the South
Wing. The unmistakably unique and possibly Phoenician
character of some of the walls here not unnaturally leads
one to look for a parallel at the monuments in Phoenicia.
Here is Professor Reber s brief description (taken from M.
Renan s account of his expedition) of the " Snail s-Tower "
at Marathus, the ancient Amrit, not far from the Byblus of
which the Paphian Cinyras was the fabled king. This
building, with four others, forms the most considerable mass
of Phoenician work preserved in Phoenicia. The effect of
them from afar is said to be very wonderful. A closer
view shows a certain helpless heaviness that makes them
less interesting. The " Snail s-Tower " is constructed out
of huge square -hewn blocks of limestone. It is a cube
i This rough dressing of the stone with a draught around the edge is
known as Rustica, and has been supposed to be a mark of Phoenician work
manship. But though such chiselling has been found in Phoenicia, it is
also plentiful elsewhere and does not prove Phoenician handiwork here.
Perhaps it is vain to seek any real knowledge of Phoenician buildings, or
to identify anything as certainly Phoenician, outside of Phoenicia itself.
Dr. Franz Reber has truly said in his Kunstgeschichte des Alterthums (p.
134) that the characteristically Phoenician adornments of buildings, private
and public, were of wood. The cedars of Lebanon were so near at hand.
It is therefore possible since Cyprus of old abounded in forests that the
first temple at Paphos was chiefly of wood. The tradition of abundant
wood upon the island existed in 1532, when Ziegler wrote " Silvosa
primitus fuit, sed quia metalli aeris ferax esset silva excisa in caminos et
opera metalli campos aperuerunt arabiles. " Ortelius, 1573, gives Ammianus
Marcellinus (book xiv. ) and other authorities for forests and shipbuilding in
Cyprus. Evagoras and Conon both resorted to these forests for ship
building, which must have had great importance from the end of the fifth
century B.C. downward.
THE TEMPLE AT OLD PAPHOS 309
eleven metres high and nine metres square, and there are
traces of a pyramid that once surmounted this cube. Its
hewn stones five metres in length longer, that is to say, than
the longest of the pierced monoliths of the south wing at
Paphos are treated in Rustica, like the later walls of the
same south wing at Paphos. The " Snail s -Tower " has
within it two mortuary chambers, and it was undoubtedly a
tomb, as were also the four smaller buildings not far away.
I venture to suggest that in these remarkably puzzling
walls of the so-called south wing we may have the remains
of one or more tombs built by the Phoenicians. These
buildings were partly suggested by the pyramids of Egypt,
no doubt ; the subterranean mortuary chambers hollowed
out in the rock under all the great tombs at Marathus,
excepting the " Snail s -Tower," are indeed an attempt to
reproduce the conditions of the chamber of the dead in the
bowels of the Egyptian pyramid. In the " Snail s-Tower "
and if it be a tomb also at Paphos we have a departure
from this type. The builders at last contented themselves
with massively built chambers above ground. What leads
me to think of the south wing here at Paphos as having
possibly been a tomb is the matter-of-course way in which
Clement of Alexandria, 1 quoting from the first book of a
work by Ptolemy the son of Agesarchus, talks of the tombs
of Cinyras and his descendants as being at Paphos within
the precinct of Aphrodite. They are, he as much as says,
well-known features of the sanctuary at Old Paphos. We
need not, in spite of some traditions to that effect, assume
a tomb of Aphrodite, but merely that there was at Paphos
one tomb or several for the great king-priests of importance.
But if Clement the Roman were taken literally in what he
says of a tomb of Aphrodite at Old Paphos, 2 this might very
well be paralleled by the statue of Aphrodite surnamed of
1 Clemens Alexandrinus (Protrept. cap. iii. ad fin.} nToXe/Kuoy 3 6
roO Ayrjffdpxov ev T Trpwro; r&v Trepi rbv ^lAoTrdro/xz ev IId0y X^*yei (v
T$ TTJS A0po5tT77s tepy Hivvpav re Kal roi)s Kivupov airoybvovs KfKrjdfVffBai.
2 HomiL v. 23.
310 APPENDIX VI
the tomb (riTv/i/?ta) l and the tomb of Chthonian Dionysus
which were features of the great temple at Delphi. At
Delphi the tomb of Dionysus was a half-understood relic
of an order of worship long superseded. At Paphos the
Phoenician-built tomb of Aphrodite would represent an
early and perhaps a purely Phoenician phase of worship,
and would commemorate the descent of Ishtar her death
into Urugal.
But now, if these oldest ruins are the remains of tombs,
it is certainly time to turn to the temple itself, which is
only a few steps north of the northernmost portion of the
remains just mentioned. I have called the whole space
occupied by the temple ruins, as Mr. Gardner does, an
irregular trapezium. Its west and south sides measure
220 feet, its east side 228 feet, and its north side 207 feet.
This great quadrilateral enclosure is not rectangular, though
the Romans, when they repaired and rebuilt it, did their
best to make a rectangle out of it. Its eastern side con
sisted of a range of chambers and a way out ; the whole of
its northern side probably, and certainly the whole of its
southern side, consisted of a long porch. 2 These porches,
had their unmistakable traces not appeared, would have
been suggested not only by what is known of cognate
temples, but also by the heats of Cyprus. These impera
tively demanded a shelter within the precinct for the pro
cessions wearied by the long way from New Paphos. 3
These considerations suggest that upon the remaining side
the western one may also have been a portico. Un
fortunately there are absolutely no remains of any kind
1 Plutarch, Q. Rom. 23. The other Clement (of Alexandria), speak
ing of the Argives, describes them as ol
I use porch here, as in chap. vi. above, in the sense ot stoa or
porticus.
3 A remarkably interesting proof of the great good sense which guided
the learned authors Perrot and Chipiez in their account of Paphos may be
found in their statement that such porticoes were required upon the site.
It is not often that subsequent excavations on a site bear such clear testi
mony in favour of those who had to speak without all the facts.
PLAN OF THE TEMPLE AT OLD PAPHOS
NORTH
COURT
EAST ENTRANCED
m^^^^^
CENTRAL CHAMBER
- Notes
Portion of walls of periods earlier than.
Roman existing in site
Portion* of early walls supplied to complete
existing fragments
Portions of walla of Roman note existing
tnsite _ r
Pert ,3 of Rom-an walls suppftei to
complete existing fragments
Clst t Smith Hint. A Del. 1888
To face page 310
THE TEMPLE AT OLD PAPHOS 311
upon the western side, and, therefore, only the natural
requirements of worshippers, and the not wholly convincing
parallel of Solomon s temple, can be appealed to in favour
of a porch or anything else. 1 With this general description
of the temple after the excavation, let us compare what was
supposed to be known before excavations took place.
Professor Reber, with admirable judgment and brevity, says
" Within a circular fence enclosure there was a group of
buildings consisting of two lower wings overtopped by a
higher central nave. The wings were supported by columns,
perhaps they were porticoes. Two columns shaped like
those of Egyptian architecture stood disengaged and un
burdened. It is likely that these last had no architectural
function, but were like Jachin and Boaz." These last, it
will be remembered, were either in the front of or in front
of the entrance to the Hebrew sanctuary. This whole
description is based upon representations of the temple on
coins and upon an intaglio.
Excavation on the site has done away with the notion
of a circular enclosure. The shape of the coin, Mr.
Gardner suggests, left no choice to the artist. The
quadrilateral court really has no curved lines on any of its
sides. It is hard to determine the exact position of the
sanctuary where was the pyramid of white stone worshipped
at Paphos as at Byblus. It was in all probability one of
the chambers built along the east side of the quadrilateral.
Of these chambers three are now traceable, and strange
to relate, by the side of the central one of these three is
an open way out. This has been called the east entrance.
North of this entrance are the north chambers, not sup
posed by any one to have been the sanctuary. South of
it is the central chamber, which was almost certainly the
sanctuary in later Roman days, because in the open court
opposite its front the Romans built a colonnaded approach
1 Many cross trenches were made in the hope that further excavation to
the west might be justified. Nothing, however, was found except, at a few
inches below the soil, the bed rock.
312 APPENDIX VI
on a higher level than the south portico. This we may
call the Central Hall. Thus the sanctuary of later Roman
days a chamber older than the Roman Hall in front of
it was approached through a hall of Roman construction.
When this hall was built the Romans undertook to make
the open court square, and there resulted an irregular
passage just in front of the chambers and east entrance
which they very probably roofed over.
In spite of the fact that the Romans have made it easy
to identify the central chamber as the sanctuary by build
ing a hall in front of it, some extremely minute observations
about the manner of construction exhibited by various walls
have made certain visitors of the site incline to think that
at one time (before serious earthquakes made Roman
rebuilding necessary) there was one more chamber on the
east side of the court. At that time the Roman sanctuary
(central chamber) was not the sanctuary but one of
two lower wings flanking the sanctuary, which was part of
the present south chamber. Thus we should have for the
earlier Greek period of the temple a plan which the coins
continued to reproduce in late Roman days, although earth
quakes and alterations had sadly interfered, and had even
made it necessary to shift the sanctuary. The oldest walls
belonging to the temple proper are all of them of an epoch
later than any of the walls south of the temple, and con
stituting the south wing. The central and the south
chambers and the north portico were apparently built long
before the Romans, and were merely patched by them.
This third species of early work on the site the two earlier
exemplified only in the south wing being supposably
Phoenician may be called the Greco -Phoenician walls.
A common feature distinguishing them all from Roman
work is that there is no mortar used.
The temple then consists of four main parts whose exist
ence is established, and one missing part whose existence
is problematical but may for the moment be taken for
granted.
THE TEMPLE AT OLD PAPHOS 313
i st. The Chambers and Entrance, which are its east
side. Traces of a curiously modified Greek work (Greco-
Phoenician) coexist with Roman mending in these walls.
2nd. The North Portico, which is the north side. Here
the work is Roman with just enough traces of what I have
called Greco-Phoenician to make it exceedingly improbable
that the original ground-plan was materially departed from.
3rd. The entirely Roman Southern Portico, which is
the south side. Here, again, dim traces of an original build
ing are visible, and confirm the notion that the Romans
did not seriously innovate. Under the mosaic pavement
here were found various fragments of undoubtedly Greek
workmanship.
4th. The entirely Roman Hall, by which the later
sanctuary marked Central Hall on the plan was
approached. This ran parallel to the two porticoes, passing
through or near the middle of the great would-be quadrangle
or court of the temple. Beyond the construction of this
hall of approach no serious departure from the original
ground-plan was apparently made by the Romans. That
their south portico should have been a great enlargement
of what had been there before, and should have wiped out
nearly all vestiges of it, is natural. The analogy of the
Jewish temple requires a far more spacious portico here
than on the opposite and northern side of the court. The
temple built by Herod had its royal portico on the south.
Finally, if there were no other reason for a more spacious
portico on the south side of the court at Paphos, the fact
that processions from New Paphos must have entered from
the south would settle the question as a practical one.
To sum up, the temple ruins at Old Paphos have proved
on examination not to be those of a Grecian temple
similar to those built in honour of the Paphian goddess in
Greece. We have at Old Paphos the very interesting but
unfortunately defaced remains of a temple resembling in
many ascertainable points that of Solomon. It must be
admitted, however, that a comparison between two things
3H APPENDIX VI
so insufficiently known as the plans of these two temples
must of necessity be somewhat barren of tangible results.
The remains called the South Wing, which have chiefly
excited the curiosity of all travellers, have not, I think, any
thing to do with the temple- building as such, but are the
remains of a Phoenician tomb, like the " Snail s -Tower " at
Amrit.
Would that we had more knowledge. If other temples
and more tombs built by the Phoenicians or on the Phoen
ician plan had been examined and understood, it would
be perhaps easy to know all manner of things about the
remains at Old Paphos. As it is, the biblical accounts of
temple -building at Jerusalem, supplemented by Josephus
and his description of Herod s temple-building, afford only
the palest side-lights the only lights available for illustrating
the temple ruins discovered at Old Paphos. 1 And, as for
the walls of the South Wing, it is by no means certain that
they can be confidently described as the Tomb of Cinyras ;
but this account of it is the best to be had, I am sure.
1 The plan just discussed results from the most thorough and scientific
exploration of remains existing upon the traditional site of the Paphian
temple. Yet it is quite possible to explain all that is shown upon this
plan without being sure that any part of it was the real temple of the
Paphian goddess. This uncertainty has been recently expressed by no
less an authority than Mr. F. C. Penrose (new series of the Transactions
of the Royal Society of British Architects, vol. vi. p. 66). Mr. Penrose,
after recognising a possible connection between this plan of the Paphian
temple and that of Solomon s temple, says : "On this account alone the
examination of the Temple of Aphrodite in Cyprus has not been labour
wasted. The finds indeed have not been very beautiful architecturally,
but still the plan is remarkable, and its use, I think, has yet to be made
out." Unlikely as any new discoveries near the site already excavated
will seem to any who know the spot, their impossibility has certainly not
been ocularly demonstrated. Until such demonstration shall have been
given, other archaeologists will be not unlikely to share the uncertainty of
Mr. Penrose. This being the case, it is a great satisfaction to know that
a project for eventual excavations at Couclia which shall make uncertainty
impossible has been discussed. The best guarantee for its efficient manage
ment in case it should ever be carried out is that those who have been
moving in the matter were the originators and prosecutors of the excava
tions just described.
APPENDIX VII
APHRODITE OF THE GREEKS, HITTITES, AND
PHOENICIANS
MANY who are learned in Greek have a pardonable bias in
favour of a Greek rather than a Phoenician origin for so
important a goddess of the Greeks as Aphrodite. Others
who have studied the monuments of Asia Minor, and found
there new and interesting materials about the " Hittites,"
are beginning to suspect that Paphian Aphrodite was
originally a goddess of the " Hittites," and to maintain
that neither in her origin nor in her main characteristics
was she of Greek or of Phoenician derivation. In one
doctrine only do these two jarring sects agree both main
tain the non-Phoenician birth and breeding of the goddess
worshipped at Paphos and in Greece as of Paphos.
Engel and Heffter, who are anxious to prove the Greek
origin of this Greek goddess, have the following case : l
The Homeric poems contain many allusions to Aphrodite,
the daughter of Zeus and Dione. Now Dione is the
feminine form of Zeus, and these names both lead back to
a primitive cult as far from Cyprus and the east as any
thing on Greek soil possibly could be. Dodona and the
extreme north-west not Cyprus and the east would
then be the cradle of Aphrodite-worship. It may be main
tained that a knowledge on Homer s part of Paphos and
1 I am perhaps bound to say that the statement of their case is mine.
3i6 APPENDIX VII
Cyprus disappears with the application of critical standards
to the text of the Odyssey and the relegation to a later
date of the Aphrodite- Ares episode in the eighth book, at
the end of which the goddess betakes her to Paphos.
Every one must, I think, admit that the oldest portions of
the Iliad and Odyssey know nothing of Aphrodite as Cypris
or the Paphian goddess. But to return to the vindicators
of the purely Hellenic origin of our goddess ; Herodotus,
they say, and other Greeks * who talk confidently of the
Cypro-Phoenician beginnings of the Greek goddess, take
this view partly from a perceptible bias in favour of the
east as the place for all origins, especially religious ones,
and partly from a lack of the critical point of view.
This critical treatment of Homer must not, however, be
half applied, and if it is conscientiously brought to bear on
all the places where Aphrodite is mentioned by Homer, the
result is not by any means in favour of her Greek origin.
The most undeniably primitive portions of the Iliad and
the Odyssey, the oldest groundwork of Homeric song, con
tain no word or words to show that the poets of primeval
Greece knew at all either whence or from what parentage
Aphrodite came. All the passages of Homer where
Aphrodite is called the daughter of Zeus and Dione, like
all those where she is spoken of as Cypris, or in any way
connected with Paphos, are, by a remarkably general con
sensus of otherwise discordant critics, pronounced to belong
to a comparatively late period when the Homeric poems
underwent what may be called revision and amplification. 2
1 For the various authorities see note i, p. 284, above.
2 There are eleven passages of the Homeric poems where Aphrodite is
mentioned as the daughter of Zeus, or of Dione. They occur in the Third,
Fifth, Fourteenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-first books of the Iliad, and
in the Eighth book of the Odyssey, They are to be naturally grouped as
follows : (i) //. iii. 374 ; (2) //. v. 131, 312, 371, 382, 820 ; (3) //. xiv.
193, 224 ; (4) //. xx. 105 ; (5) //. xxi. 416 ; and (6) Od. viii. 308. A number
of these passages cannot possibly count in favour of the greater antiquity
of a purely Greek Aphrodite, since they associate her as the daughter of
Zeus and Dione, not with Dodona or any place in Greece, but by calling
her Cypris, or otherwise, identify her with Paphos and Cyprus. At the
APHRODITE GREEK, HITTITE, PHOENICIAN 317
As far then as the testimony of the Homeric poems can
avail to prove anything about the earliest Greek knowledge
of Aphrodite, it shows that her powers and her charms
were known long before her origin was thought of. Further
more it is plain that when the question of her birthplace
and parentage did arise, it received a twofold answer. In
absolute unconsciousness of the contradiction involved,
Homer tells us that Aphrodite, the daughter of Zeus and
Dione, was named Cypris, and had, for her favoured place
of abiding, Paphos. Homer begins by knowing too little
and ends by knowing too much about the Paphian divinity.
same time (Od. viii. 288 and xviii. 193) the Odyssey indicates that this
Paphian goddess was immediately identified with the Phoenician divinity
of the island of Cythera (Cerigo) by calling her Cytherea (see Pausanias,
III. xxiii. i).
All the passages see (2) above in the Fifth Iliad are off-set by
others, 330, 422, 458, 760, 883, where this Greek daughter of Zeus and
Dione is called Cypris, i.e. not Greek but of Cyprus. Indeed this whole
episode of the wounding of Aphrodite is quite as certainly of late
composition as is the tale of the loves of Ares and Aphrodite in the
Eighth Odyssey, where Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus and Dione (6)
above claims Cyprus as her own, and takes refuge in Paphos. See
lines 363 ff. Thus (2) and (6) are ruled out as evidence of the greater
antiquity of a Greek Aphrodite for the early Greeks, and (i), (3), (4), (5)
remain.
As to (i), Bergk (Litteraturgeschichte, vol. i. p. 566) declares it to be a
late addition. For many opinions to the same effect see Ameis-Hentze s
Iliad (Anhang, Heft i. pp. 159-176). The Fourteenth Iliad (3), so far as
it concerns us, as also the Twentieth (4), and the Twenty-first (5), are
similarly divorced by the consensus of competent critics from the un
doubtedly oldest groundwork of the Iliad. These facts are the more
worth considering because none of these exclusions was made with any
reference to or knowledge of the question here under discussion. See for
(3) the Fourteenth Iliad, Bernhardy (Litteraturgeschichte, pp. 164 and
165 of the first part of the History of Greek Poetry}. At p. 169 (ibid. )
Bernhardy begins his careful presentation of the various views of various
scholars about the closing books of the Iliad, and makes it tolerably plain
that (4) and (5) are to be classed with (i), (2), (3), and (6), as belonging
to a comparatively modern phase of the Homeric era. In confirmation of
this view see Bergk in the work above cited, pp. 609-613 for (3), pp.
633-634 for (4), and p. 636 for (5). If still further confirmation be
desired, it may be found in Ameis - Hentze s Iliad (Erlduterungcn zu
xiii.-xv. pp. 45-69, and ibid., Erlauterungen zu xix.-xxi. pp. 45-63,
and p. 95).
318 APPENDIX VI 1
If Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and Dione, she was
a native goddess of the Greeks ; and her name was not
Cypris, nor was her home at Paphos or elsewhere in Cyprus.
Logic does not, however, avail when you are dealing with
poetry and religion. Homer and the other poets are so
independent of " arguments about it and about " that, in a far
later day, Theocritus, when he wrote his seventeenth Idyll l
in praise of Ptolemy, spoke of " The mistress of Cyprus,
daughter revered of Zeus and Dione."
The most reasonable way of explaining this poetical
vagueness of Homer points to a confirmation of the usual
theory that Aphrodite was essentially of Paphos and the
east. The earliest Homeric presentation of her divinity
by giving her no birthplace, and by silence as to her
parents, treats her as a comparatively unknown power.
Later on, when her commanding influence secures attention
to her antecedents, a native and aboriginally Greek worship
asserts its claims, which ran parallel to hers. This Greek
goddess was no daughter of Zeus and Dione, but Dione
herself. Dione was apparently for the early Greeks what
Freya was to the Germans, and what Venus was to the
early Romans. Dione 2 was worshipped by the side of
Zeus at Dodona. Euripides fragment 177, from the lost
play of Antigone apostrophises Dionysus as the son of
Dione, and thus makes her the same with Thyone-Semele,
originally an earth-goddess. All this goes to show what
were the most ancient Greek associations, surviving vaguely
in all pious minds of Greece, which would sometimes lay
hold upon the smiling goddess of the east. These associa
tions have an undeniable solemnity and a real dignity
which are often lacking in the more eastern aspect of the
goddess, and they doubtless played a part in the ennobling
transformation which that goddess underwent at the hands
of Hellas ; but the fact remains that Dione of the early
Greeks was very completely overshadowed and supplanted
1 Line 36, KvTrpov exoiffa Aiuwas TTOTVIOL
2 See Plew s revision of Preller s Greek Mythology, p. 271.
APHRODITE GREEK, HITTITE, PHOENICIAN 319
by Cypris, the goddess of Paphos, and through Paphos of
Phoenicia and Assyria.
The first victory won by Cypris was in the matter of the
name. Where the case is of conflicting divinities, every
thing is in a name, and the name of Dione was practically
driven out by Cypris-Aphrodite. Whatever may be the
derivation of Aphrodite, it is not Greek, and Cypris speaks
for itself, in spite of the forced attempt of an over-ingenious
Homeric commentator to derive it from a Greek word l
meaning to be pregnant. Then, with this prevalence of the
new name partly as the cause and partly as the effect of it,
came the increasing renown of the great places of the
eastern worship of the goddess. Paphos and Cythera,
both of them, played a remarkable role in the development
of early commerce on the Mediterranean. No wonder
then if the early Greek poets fancied that the real divinity
was Aphrodite-Cypris, and not Dione of Dodona. No
wonder if the old Greek divinity merely retained sufficient
hold upon the imaginations of Greek-speaking men to live
on as mother of the goddess. A conflict between Do-
donaean Dione and Aphrodite-Cypris, where the latter was
victorious, is the sufficient explanation of the anomalies in
Homer s account of Aphrodite.
If this account of the overshadowing of the native Greek
figure of Dione - Aphrodite by the Cypris - Aphrodite of
Cythera and of Paphos is deemed convincing, and if it be
admitted that, so far as her Greek worshippers were con
cerned, Cypris-Aphrodite was above and before all the
Paphian goddess, then the question of her origin at Paphos
must be reopened. Some of those who are especially
entitled to a respectful hearing upon any question where
Cyprus is concerned are inclined to believe that the pre
ponderance in earliest times, at Paphos and in Cyprus, of
Phoenician influence has been so seriously overstated as to
obscure the really characteristic and original strain of the
Paphian goddess, who will, they think, be eventually recog-
320 APPENDIX VII
nised as the Paphian and Cyprian modification of a divinity
of Asia Minor. The dissemination of the cult of this
goddess they attribute to a conquering race known hitherto
only by name, and chiefly from the annals of Canaan and
Egypt. This is Aphrodite of the " Hittites."
In the chapter above on Paphian Aphrodite room has
been made in the process of reshaping submitted to by the
Phoenician Ashtaroth-Astarte for a noteworthy element
from Asia Minor added at Paphos to the goddess s character.
This Paphian and non-Phoenician strain may conveniently
be called by the name of the " Hittites." It certainly
constitutes an important difference between Cypris-Aphro-
dite and Ashtaroth, but for all that I do not find myself
convinced of its all-importance. I am still convinced that
Phoenician influence was the "tone-giving" one at the temple
of Aphrodite at Old Paphos, as it evidently was at Cythera
and at Eryx. In order, therefore, that the last great light
which shines upon the Paphian goddess from a rising
interest now felt in the new-found " Hittite " theory may
not be dimmed by prepossessions of my own, I have asked
and obtained the permission of my friend, Mr. D. G.
Hogarth, to print portions of a private letter which he was
good enough to address to me. Little as I think anything
which one of his competent knowledge and especial research
may say on this subject requires either explanation or
apology, I am perhaps bound to quote his remark that
" future research may easily upset " various confirmations
of the view which he so acutely defends, and to repeat his
observation that the knowledge of the " Hittites " is only
at its beginnings. The following, then, is his account of
Aphrodite of the " Hittites," communicated to me in con
nection with my attempt to criticise a note in his Devia
Cypria^ a book which I have always used with advantage.
" Now, as to the general question of my note in Devia
Cypria, p. 26, the Phoenician origin of Aphrodite, and the
part played by Phoenicians in Cyprus, I may as well state
1 See above, note i, p. 282.
APHRODITE GREEK, HITTITE, PHOENICIAN 321
my own theory for what it is worth. My idea in writing
that note was that Aphrodite is the Asiatic goddess, derived
from Asia Minor, where she was universally worshipped at
an early period not from Phoenicia, though I know that
Ashtaroth is only another avatar of the same divinity. It
seems to me a very significant fact that the Cypriote
Syllabary is entirely non-Phoenician ; it is also so clumsy a
vehicle for a Greek language that it must have been rooted
before Phoenician was brought into contact with the
islanders. If not, it is difficult to understand either how it
was not supplanted by the more convenient script, or how,
on the other hand, it could itself have supplanted the latter.
This postulates, therefore, an ancient pre-Phoenician popula
tion in Cyprus. Whom did they worship? In early Cypriote
inscriptions Aphrodite does not occur, but r) Fdvaa-a-a
and r) Ilafaja do occur. Is she the original goddess, only
called Aphrodite much later ?
"If the date of Cypriote texts were better assured, I
believe that it could be proved that 17 fai/ao-o-a is pre-
Phoenician. It is not yet proved, but it is probable, that
the Cypriote script comes from the Hittites ; it was
employed by a people speaking a language in which there
were no Semitic elements. Why, then, should the great
goddess of that people be Semitic ?
"You say there is no positive evidence against Phoenicians
being the originators of the goddess and the main influence
in the island. Certainly I can adduce nothing more con
vincing than the above considerations. I find it hard to
believe that a people who left so little influence on the
speech of an island originated its chief worship, and I
point, rather as confirmation than anything else, to the
scantiness and local distribution of Phoenician remains in
Cyprus. I know that future research may easily upset
that confirmation ; but at present the fact that only Citium,
where there was an independent Phoenician kingdom in
late times, and Idalium, which depended on it, have
yielded anything of importance, is remarkable. By the way,
Y
322 APPENDIX VII
have you noticed that at the latter there has been found
no dedication to or mention of Aphrodite, whereas Athena
is common ?
" Neither Herodotus nor Homer can furnish very strong
evidence for events previous to their time. I take it that
Hittites never came in contact with western Greeks, and
were always unknown to the literature of the latter ; what
they did directly or indirectly in Cyprus would naturally be
ascribed to Phoenicians. You say yourself, and most
truly, that Cinyras is more like Attis than Tamuz.
" This is a crude statement of the idea which led me to
write the note to which you refer. There is, I admit,
another theory which would account for some of the facts,
though it will not explain the absence of Phoenician remains,
namely, that the immigration of a people from Asia Minor
at an early period drove out Phoenicians who had peopled
the island previously. It is not hard to believe that such
Asiatic immigrants, being worshippers of the great Nature
goddess, would identify her with their predecessor s Ash-
taroth, who would accordingly survive in Cyprus while the
other gods returned to Sidon and Tyre. Some day I hope
to discuss this problem more fully, but do not see how
either theory is to be established unless a date can be found
for the earliest Cypriote inscriptions. When we found such
complete incised Hittite texts this past summer in Cappa-
docia, I thought that we might be able to show a fairly
close relationship between their conventionalised symbols and
the Cypriote ; but there is no more resemblance than in
the case of the well-known symbols in relief. True that
the number of incised * Hittite inscriptions known at
present is very small ; still it cannot be said that the pro
spect of finding a terminus a quo for Cypriote by comparing
these (probably) late examples of Hittite is particularly
bright at present.
" By the way, a propos of what you say about a Thracian
wave on page 280, Ramsay has shown conclusively now that
this wave was that which introduced a father god ; Cyprus
APHRODITE GREEK, HITTITE, PHOENICIAN 323
owns a mother, and her aboriginal must belong to the
earlier time."
After all, the above account of the aboriginal mother
goddess of Cyprus differs from my own only in the com
parative importance attached to the main elements of
Phoenician and of " Hittite " origin in the Paphian
goddess as she conceivably existed at Paphos before the
first advent of the Greeks. Chiefly to Mr. Hogarth, but
somewhat also to Engel, I owe the conviction that there
was an aboriginal pre-Phoenician goddess at Paphos. I
would like to persuade him that the belief of Herodotus
and others, who had some facts before them which are
inaccessible to us, that the Phoenicians did visit and abide
at Paphos, was well founded, and cannot possibly be due
to a confusion between " Hittites " and Phoenicians.
Furthermore, I would urge upon him that these Phoenicians
so transformed the Mother Queen of the " Hittites " that
the resulting Paphian divinity found at Paphos, and
adopted by the early Greeks, was Phoenician rather than
" Hittite."
Any other view of the case makes it difficult to under
stand the legend of the founding from Eryx, i.e. by the
Sicilian Phoenicians, of a temple of Aphrodite at Psophis,
in Arcadia. It is also difficult to explain upon any jother
theory the early bestowal upon Aphrodite of the name
Cytherea derived from a worship established at Cythera by
purple-fishing Phoenicians. And yet this epithet seems to
be about as old as that of Cypris.
In fact, if Paphian Aphrodite was of the " Hittites,"
when Greeks first found her at Paphos, then she " suffered
a sea-change " on her way to Greece, which left her indis
tinguishable, so far as Greek worshippers were concerned,
from the Greco -Phoenician goddess on Cythera and at
Eryx.
APPENDIX VIII
THE OLYMPUS AND THE BOCARUS IN CYPRUS
HETTORE PODOCATHARO AND JOHN
MEURSIUS
THE most minute and comparatively unimportant questions
require sometimes an unusual expenditure of time, and
what seems a vast deal of talk about nothing at all. This
general truth will, I fear, receive illustration in what follows.
If it were possible without controversy to call Mount
Troodos the highest mountain of Cyprus Olympus,
the "mons mamillae similis " of certain well-known old 1
maps of Cyprus, and one or two unknown or hardly known
modern 2 ones ; and if I could ignore the trivial fact that
a blunder of the elder John Meursius has imported the
river-name Bocarus from the Athenian island of Salamis,
1 See the finest of Cardinal Bessarion s MSS. , a copy of the work of
Ptolemy, whose original goes back, they say, to the twelfth or thirteenth
century. However that may be, Bessarion s copy now in the Marcian
Library has a beautiful map of Cyprus, somewhat misshapen, where
Olympus figures. A. Ortelius published in 1573 a map entitled " Cypri
Insulae Nova Descript." Here Troodos does not appear at all (Trodisi
occurs as the name of a village), although the map is for modern purposes
and contains only modern geographical names, i.e. names used by the
Lusignans and Venetians. Paphos for instance is marked Baffo, olim
Paphos.
2 Chypre : Histoire et Geographic, par le Marquis de Sassenay : Paris
1878. On the excellent map here published and originally made for the
" Revue de Ge"ographie, " the Troodos is rightly identified as the ancient
Olympus.
OLYMPUS AND BOCARUS IN CYPRUS 325
where it belongs, into Cyprus where it has no place, then
the tiresome minutiae of this appendix might be dispensed
with. But I have already been asked by the kindest and
most competent of critics what is my authority for saying
that the Troodos, and therefore not Mount Santa Croce,
or Delia Croce (Stavrovuni), was anciently called Olympus.
The question is justified; for the best accredited maps that
of Major (then Captain) Kitchener and those of Kiepert
identify the ancient Olympus in question with Mount
Santa Croce (Stavrovuni), and leave us to believe
that Strabo had never heard of the only remarkable
mountain in Cyprus. To answer this question and to
protect my account of the shrine of Aphrodite at Old
Paphos from the reproach of containing no mention of the
wonderful river Bocarus of one hundred mouths, the
following description of blunders within blunders, of con
fusions ancient and modern, is offered to such as may be
minded to read it.
The question whether the ancients applied the name
Olympus to Mount Troodos or Mount Santa Croce in
Cyprus is eventually settled, I think first, by Strabo s epithet
of /xao-roetSes, which is absurd when applied to Stavrovuni
and exactly suits Troodos ; and secondly, by a good MS. of
Strabo. 1 The restoration of a period there found, in place
1 The ordinarily accepted text (Teubner) of Meineke for this crucial
passage, of Strabo, book xiv. p. 683, is as follows, he has just mentioned
KLTLOV (Larnaca) : elr A/u,a0oOs 7r6Xis Kal fj,era^v iro\Lxvf] llaXcua, Ka\ov-
fj.tvr), Kal 6pos /macTToeidts "OXi /iTros" elra Kouptds (&Kpa) ^ppovrja^rjs.
. . . Thus Olympus would be Stavrovuni or Mount Santa Croce, which
lies just inland from the place assigned by Strabo to Palaea between
Larnaca and Limassol. The punctuation of the same passage which I
propose to adopt is that of the Marcian Strabo catalogued in Venice as
"Cod. 378 (Arm. Ixviii. Th. xc.) in 4 minori membr. fol. 43; Saeculi
circiter xi. " elr Apadovs 7r6\ts Kal /xera^i) iro\ixvn HaXcua KaXov^vrj.
Kat #pos /xatrroeiSes "QXv/juros eira Koi&gt;/&gt;x? xeppovTjcrudrjs. . . . This
dissociates Palaia which is mentioned, as it were, parenthetically from
Olympus, and puts the latter between Amathus (Limassol) and Curias.
This description exactly applies to the Troodos, since Strabo thought of
the coast directly after Curias as trending northward, see lower down on
the same p. 683 : apx^] 8 oiV roO dvff/JiLKov TrapdirXov TO Kovpiov, Curium
is the town just beyond Curias from Limassol (Amathus), TOV
326 APPENDIX VIII
of the comma substituted for it in the generally accepted
text, settles the question. Still the present punctuation of
Strabo s text is of very ancient date, since, as we shall see,
Eustathius read it as Meineke does. It will be well
therefore to go into many details and fully to understand
how such a conflict of opinions has gathered around so
simple a matter as the identification of this Cypriote
Olympus. Above all we must remember that the same
name of Olympus is also applied by Strabo to a headland-
promontory at the extremest north-eastern point of the
island. 1 About the situation of this, the lesser Olympus of
Cyprus, there are not two opinions. Now I will pass in
review some of the accounts given at various more or less
modem times of the greater Olympus. No more com
manding authority than that of His Holiness Pope Pius
the Second can be appealed to in the fifteenth century.
In the chapter on Asia Minor of his Opera Geographica et
Historical he translates from Strabo the passage where
Olympus is mentioned, he does not speak of Strabo, but
simply adopts the passage as his own. Having mentioned
Citium [Larnaca], he writes : " Deinde Amathus civitas,
et intermedio spatio oppidum nomine Palae et Olympus
mons qui mamillae speciem praebuit et Curias penin-
sulam, et Curium urbs." Thus the Pope Aeneas Sylvius
de Piccolomini plainly ignored the highest mountain of
Cyprus and applied the name Olympus to Mount Santa
Croce ; or did he simply follow the punctuation of the
irpbs PoSov. ... It is impossible, I think, to suppose with the ingenious
d Anville (Mtmoires de I Institut, Ancienne Se"rie, vol. xxxii. p. 259) in his
Recherches Gdographiques sur lile de Chypre, that Strabo meant both
Stavrovuni and Troodos by his Olympus.
1 Thus the name Olympus rightfully occurs twice on maps of ancient
Cyprus. Ortelius in his ancient map (1580) brings it in thrice, and so
does M. le Comte de Mas Latrie on a map published in 1862.
2 Pius II. is not speaking from personal observation, as in his Coin-
mentarii, where he so graphically describes the situation of Monte Oliveto
and the Alban Hills. Cyprus, throughout the fifteenth century, was little
visited, and indeed even in Venice was regarded as a place of banishment,
as was shown by the banishment of two inconvenient nobles to Nicosia in
1492.
OLYMPUS AND BOCARUS IN CYPRUS 327
Strabo which lay open before him ? l Pius the Second
wrote the above while he was pope (i458-i464). 2 Let us
now appeal from him to the German Ziegler (1532).
Ziegler simply places Olympus in the southern part of
the island : " Orientalia . . . Salaminia comprehendunt,
Occidentalia Paphia, Meridionalia Amathusia et Olympus
mons, Septentrionalia Lapathea." Now this unfortunately
is very non-committal, but the difference is very appreciable
between a statement that Olympus is between Citium
(Larnaca) and Amathus (Limassol), and that it lies in the
district of Amathus, with the district of Lapethus to the
north. The latter description of the mountain s where
abouts almost inevitably attaches the name Olympus to the
Troodos which would to-day be described as in the district
of Limassol, since the road leading to its summit begins
there. But after all Ziegler is only translating the well-
known passage in Ptolemy, as Aeneas Sylvius translated
Strabo. Ptolemy, as explained by the traditional map in
the best MSS., is decidedly though not decisively in favour
of identifying the ancient Mount Olympus with the
Troodos. What is really needed is not an accumulation
of slightly varying translations of two well-known passages
in Strabo and Ptolemy respectively, but if possible some
trace of the local survival in Cyprus of the name Olympus.
So far as ancient testimony leaves the matter in doubt,
this sort of evidence has a decisive value; particularly when
the great mountain of all Cyprus is involved. Traditions
about smaller things are easily changed and shifted.
If tradition of this kind exists, its traces will be found
in the utterances of a cloud of witnesses belonging to the
sixteenth century. These men knew Cyprus at the time
1 The same mistake, if mistake there be, was made by Eustathius on
//. i. 1 8 : eiffl 5e Kal erepot "O\i&gt;/X7rot tv re yap \\e\oirovvricrq, ws KOLL tv
rots TOU TrepL7)yr)Tov eypd(prj, Kal ev Ki^Trpy 5 6pos yuacrroetS^s /J-era^v Km ou
Kal A.[j,adouvTos OXv/u.7ros Xtyerai Kal a\\-r) 5e ns aVpcipeia Kttarpou
e/caXe?ro oiirus ev y vaos Axpaias AffipodirTjs, advros yvvai^i.
2 I quote from the Helmstadt republication by Joh. Melchior Guster-
mann, 1690.
328 APPENDIX VIII
when that island was more nearly in the centre of
European affairs than ever before or since. Many of them
had an especial hold upon Venice and Cyprus as well.
Like the Athenians of old, the Venetians in the sixteenth
century, having failed to acquire any foothold on the
mainland which was at all commensurate to their maritime
and commercial importance, were forced by circumstances
to make much of their islands, and the popular interest in
these possessions gave rise to a new sort of geographical
literature in the numerous books published about islands
exclusively. That the Venetian public laid stress upon
accuracy in the depiction of any scene where their island
domain was involved is curiously exemplified by the dim
outline of the mediaeval Acropolis of Naxia (the capital of
Venetian Naxos) which adorns the middle distance of
one of the most beautiful of all Venetian pictures
Tintoretto s "Marriage of Ariadne and Bacchus." Tin
toretto was born, it will be remembered, in 1518, and
lived until 1594, and therefore the various "Isolarii"
of the century were the new books of his day. The
earliest of these which I have consulted is that of Bene
detto Bordone of Padua. This curious book was
published under a quaint and apparently irrelevant x
authorisation from Leo the Tenth (Giovanni de Medici).
" Da. Rome, apud Sanctum Petrum sub annulo piscatoris.
die V. Junii 1521 Pont. Nostri Anno Nono." But it is
evident that this imprimatur was not enough, and a
petition had to be addressed to the Venetian Signoria as
follows : "Benedetto Bordone miniator compare humilmente
davanti a le Signorie vostre narrando cum sit che molti
anni si habbi faticato di & notte in coponere uno libro,
nel quale si tratta de tutte 1 Isole del mondo si antiche
come etia moderne &c. . . ." This narration secured a
monopoly of the sale for ten years from the 6th of March
1526. The date of Bordone s Isolario was 1508: see
1 The title of Bordone s book does not appear among those recited in
the document, and his book is not apparently authorised by it.
OLYMPUS AND BOCARUS IN CYPRUS 329
Horatio Brown s Venetian Printing Press (1891) p. 103.
Bordone thought himself learned in books, and gives much
space to a remarkably confusing disquisition on La Musica,
the "terza sorella" of Astrologia, Of this last he says "e
nell numero delle Muse, adonque ell e vera." His real
claim to a hearing, however, is that he has travelled
himself, 1 or at least that he has talked with others who
have travelled, and can be depended upon to give a fresh
and unbookish account of Cyprus or any one of his "isole
si antiche come etia moderne." Of the art of drawing an
accurate map Bordone was not a master, since he was
almost the inventor of woodcutting for maps. 2 For this
reason no doubt, speaking in the third person, he tells the
Signoria of " le sue tante fatiche . . . volendo quelle far
imprimere di molte spese si nel stampare, come anchor nel
far tagliar la forma di ciaschuna Isola come essa sta. ..."
However, for the purpose in hand, Bordone s sketch map
is all-sufficient. He places "la croce," the equiva
lent of Mount Santa Croce (Stavrovuni), close to the
southern shore of the island with " il chito " (Larnaca-
Citium) close at hand. He finds no way of indicating
Mount Olympus on this map, but that is readily ex
plained when we read what he says of Olympus in the
text of his work. Speaking of Cyprus, he there says :
"& ha nel mezzo il monte olimpo." Bordone was so
completely of his day and generation that his idea of a
map did not contemplate the possibility of anything more
complete than are those rude sailors charts called Portulani
of which the Marcian Library and the Museo Correr at
Venice are full. 3 Olympus, then, was in the centre of the
1 This is shown by the letter of dedication : " allo eccellente chirurg-
ico Meser. Baldassaro Bordone, Nepote Suo, accetti queste nostre fatiche
. . . cagion potrano esser, che alchuno pellegrino ingegno la strada
dinanzi fatta vedendosi " etc., etc., the passage becomes hopelessly
muddled, but seems to imply some travelling on Bordone s part.
2 See Brown, The Venetian Printing Press, p. 103.
3 These never give any features of the interior ; frequently the space
where such details would come is taken up with pictures for the de
lectation of the jolly sailor s eye. See Portulan No. 9 (in the Marcian
330 APPENDIX VIII
island, and was not the well-known mountain on the coast
where every Venetian sailor knew the monastery and
church of the Holy Cross. Bordone emphasises this
familiar fact on his map by drawing a picture of the
church and the mountain, making the church just a little
larger than the mountain. The whole impression left by
the excellent Bordone is that of a sailor telling of his
travels after they are over in language so artless that it is
often absolutely unintelligible. An Isolario exists from
which Bordone undoubtedly took the general idea of his
book. It is that of the sea captain Bartolommeo who names
himself "da li Sonetti" in his book of geographical sonnets
on the islands of the Aegean Sea, which he dedicated to the
doge Giovanni Mocenigo, and published shortly after isoo. 1
That is about eight years before Bordone s book of the same
name.
But this form of geographical-historical literature, the
peculiar invention of the Venice of the sixteenth century,
did not perish with these rude first attempts. Its
perfection was achieved just while the Turk was out
rageously hurling himself on the island empire of Venice.
The first edition of L lsole piu famose del mondo, by
Tommaso Procacci da Cosiglione, was published in 1571,
and the author prefaces his account of Cyprus with the
following allusion to a work on that island which he had
seen in MS. : " Nel descriuer la nobilissima e famosissima
Isola di Cipro ; io faro piu breve che la grandezza &
gloria sua merita ; non perche le cose non siano molte in
numero ; ma perche essendo stata fatta questa descrittione
auanti a me dall illustre & uirtuosissimo Signore Hettore
Library) by Battista Agnese. There a figure labelled Philipus Rex
Hispaniae Rex Angliae " is throned in mid-Spain, while, somewhat
inconsistently, England is adorned with the " Regina Angliae" who sits
bolt upright and holds a sword. In Italy Pontifes Ivlivs Tercius "
holds up the cross, while over against him in Bosnia is the terrible
" Suleymanssach imperator turcorum." The date of this sailor s chart
and picture-book is 1553.
i The date of publication is apparently very doubtful, 1477 and 1485
are both given by competent authorities.
OLYMPUS AND BOCARUS IN CYPRUS 331
Podocatharo, 1 cauallier di quel Regno, & non essendo
anchora stata data in luce, 2 hauendola io per cortesia di
quell honorato & cortese signore letta, & ueduta tutta ;
non e honor mio, ne creanza di nobile spirito far torto a
quel magnanimo gentil huomo a cui son grandemente
obligato. Perb coloro che al presente legeranno questa
descrittion da me fatta, sappianno che io toccherb som-
mariamente alcuni soli passi piu important!, & del resto
aspettino di douer da quel libro, che il Signor Hettore
Podocatharo chiama Ritratte del Regno di Cipro, ueder
pienamente, e in giudizioso stile, quanto a questo proposito
appartenga."
Procacci s first edition came, as above remarked, in
1571 ; one of the publishers, Simone Galignani by name,
dedicated it to Don John of Austria, who was in a few
short months to win the glorious victory of Lepanto, for
which Venice is still full of his praises. But in spite of
this rebuff the unmentionable Turk pressed forward still, and
before Procacci s second edition appeared Cyprus had, by
process of fire and sword, and by murderous treachery, been
torn violently away from the European empire of Venice, just
1 Hettore Podocatharo was a man of some wit. Cicogna speaks of
his praises in Ludovico Domenichi s Facezia, Venice, 1574. Procacci
dedicated to Hettore the first volume of his Cagione delle Guerre Antiche,
see Cicogna s her. Venet. p. 142. The name Podocatharo (Lightfoot)
is variously spelled in old documents, but Procacci s orthography is correct,
for Cardinal Ludovico Podocatharo has adopted it on the illuminated
page which marks one of the treasures of the Biiliotheque Nationale as
having been originally his. He bequeathed the book to the Pope s
Library. How it came to be in Paris is shown by a scrawled inscription
on a scrap of paper pasted on the inside of its boards : " Exempl. du
Vatican, avec fig. 2, dont la i iire est couple par moitie". le 25 Pluv. an 9."
It is the 1481 Dante, with Landino s notes and two of Botticelli s
illustrations. Ludovico Podocatharo was born in Cyprus in 1430. Most
of his precious collection of antiquities, etc. was left to Livio Podocatharo.
Some few of the Podocathari migrated to Venice in the fifteenth century,
says Cicogna. Certainly the name is not unfamiliar on tombs in the
churches of Venice.
2 Procacci also mentions Hettore Podocatharo s " Ritratte del Regmo
di Cipro" in his work de Funerali Antichi, with the comment "non
credo che sia stumpnta questa storia."
332 APPENDIX VIII
at the time when the chance of some measure of justice for
her immemorially downtrodden natives was at last arriving.
The Hettore Podocatharo, from whose forthcoming book
the scrupulous Procacci had feared to borrow too much,
fought under Astorre Baglioni in defence of Nicosia. He
was one of the eleven captains from whom the eleven
" Beluardi " or Bulwarks of the town were named. One of
these last was on the point of succumbing, but, as maybe
read in the life of Astorre Baglioni, published at Verona in
1591 under the name of Brenzone, 1 "accorsero appresso
Gio. Antonio da Soelle, & Eftore Podocatsaro, &
ualorosamente scacciarono i nemici. Indi il Podocatsaro
seguitb il nimico fino fuori del Parapetto, se ben la sua
mala sorte volse che una scheggia di pietra spezzata dall
artigliaria lo percuotesse nel capo ove bisognb iacere in
letto. Fu feruto anco Ercole Podocatsaro." The above
mentioned Podocathari both survived these wounds and
the earlier horrors of the sack of Nicosia, where they lost
their kinsmen Giulio and Ludovico of the same name ;
Brenzone can hardly spell it twice in the same way. The
grievously wounded Hettore only escaped for a time
however. With various fugitives and 300 soldiers he was
defending as well as he might the house of his sister the
Countess of Tripoli, when the wily Mustafa urged him to
accept terms which were instantly violated. Mustafa 2
1 There are many reasons for thinking that this is a mutilated version of
Procacci s life of Baglioni, of which I have found some mention, but which
was never published unless this be it. The curious relation in which many
passages of the life of Baglioni stand on the one hand to Procacci s book on
Islands, and on the other to Estienne de Lusignan s Chorograffia, which
last especially represents Hettore Podocatharo s MSS., makes it probable
that, if Brenzone wrote the book, both Procacci and the Chorograffia were
freely used. If Procacci wrote it, he may have used the details (gathered
from Hettore s MSS.) which delicacy had prevented his using in his book
on Islands.
2 The intense hatred of Turks, common in those days as in these, is
exhibited characteristically by Brenzone in his account of the names of
those who headed the invasion of Cyprus : che nome piu stravagante e
bestiale di quello che trovano i Turchi ? Mustafa, indegno, imaginario,
bestiale, diabolico. Pialy, nome da mulatieri. Giurerei che s uno fosse
OLYMPUS AND BOCARUS IN CYPRUS 333
ordered his prisoner s head to be cut off, pretending to be
in a passion with him. 1
After his friend Podocatharo s lamentable death, Procacci
might well have put all that he could of the missing and
unpublished Ritratte del regno di Cipro into his second
edition, which was published shortly after his edition of the
Isolani of Bembo, about 1590. But in that preface he
does not say more of the book soon to come than that he
has included in it many new islands. A comparison of the
two editions shows that in fact little or nothing has been
altered in the very good account of Cyprus originally com
posed with Podocatharo s helping MS. It is high time now
to give without further explanation Procacci s account of
the Cypriote mountains Santa Croce and Troodos which
have been identified with Olympus by one authority or
another. After giving a description of the northern range
of mountains, Procacci addresses himself to the southern
group, to which both of the heights in question belong,
saying : " L altra parte de monti trauersa 1 Isola, comin-
ciando dalP antica citta Solia [Soli], ch era XVIII miglia
lontana da Cormachiti [Strabo s Cape Crommyon], &
andando per mezzo dell isola fino al monte della Croce
[Stavrovuni] che risponde a Capo Masoto [Ptolemy s Cape
Dades near Larnaca-Citium], &: uanno fino a Baffo
[Paphos] a marina ; d onde uoltano dalF altra parte, &
pure a marina uanno fino a Solia. In mezo a questi e il
monte Olimpo, chiamato con uoce Greca Trohodos^ che e
altissimo & pieno d alberi d ogni sorte, gira di circonfer-
nel mezzo di cinquanta asini, anzi lupi e dicessi Pialy, Occhiaij, o Mustafa
fuggirebbono piu che lepri i cani, o le colombe lo spaviero. "
1 Such is Brenzone s account, differing materially from that given in the
Chorograffia above mentioned and written by Padre Maestro Angelo, della
famiglia de Caletus Vicario generale di terra Santa" who was in Nicosia
during the siege and whose qualifications as a " persona iuditiosa, dotta,
& sanza passione & veridica " are much vaunted. Angelo says that the
Countess of Tripoli declared herself Mustafa s prisoner in his absence
and barricaded herself in her house till he should come. Her brother
" Hector Podochataro " was summoned for a pretended cure of his wounds
and treacherously slain on the road.
334 APPENDIX VIII
entia LIIII miglia, che son XVIII leghe, & ad ogni lega
e posto un monastero di monaci di San Basilic, Greci : e,
in ciascuno si trovano fontane in abbondanza, & frutti
d ogni qualita, onde la state soleuano i nobili Cipriotti venire
a questi luoghi per lor diporta."
The absolute equivalent of this description, though its
pure Italian is somewhat defaced, recurs in the life of
Astorre Baglioni above quoted, where it runs as follows :
"... principalmente il monte Olimpo, monte altissimo,
monte d ogni bene monte che dal piedi gira XVIII leghe.
Monte che in ogni lega si trova un monastero de Calseri,
Monaci di San Basilio Monasterij copiosi d ogni gratia,
per igrani, frutti & fonti d acque soauissime. Indi erano
chiamati le delitie della nobilta, perche 1 estate andauano a
prender aria per sanarsi : sanati conseruarsi."
It would be evident, if we did not know it from the
express statement of the scrupulous Procacci, that such a
description as either of the above originated with one who
was more than casually familiar with the facts whereof he
spoke. It is still more evident that, since the great name
of Podocatharo is connected with it, a new value immedi
ately attaches to it. The Podocathari form a link between
Cyprus under Byzantine rule and the Cyprus ruled and
misruled by Venice and the Lusignans. One of the
earliest records of the family which I have been able to
discover is in a curious book which I have often alluded
to above, and which was prepared for publication in
the monastery of Santa Catherina di Formello in the
month of November 1570 at Naples by Frate Stephano
Lusignano di Cipro, or rather Estienne de Lusignan, whose
name appears on its title-page. He fled the kingdom
ruled by his ancestors in the flurry caused by the first
arrival of the Turks, and probably reached Naples as early
as September Nicosia capitulated on September the gth :
the invaders appeared at Paphos on the ist of July.
Considering the minute nature of this uncommonly good
account of Cyprus, it is incredible that any man, let alone
OLYMPUS AND BOCARUS IN CYPRUS 335
so inefficient l a man as Estienne de Lusignan, should have
written it in so short a time as that which elapsed between
his flight and the aforesaid month of November in the same
year, unless it is a compilation from various documents,
among the most valuable of which would be Hettore
Podocatharo s missing MSS. 2
1 The inefficiency of Estienne appears especially in his foolish additions
to the simple title of Podocatharo s work, in his helpless but somewhat
pathetic apology about the misprints in the Italian version. He left the
book a whole year in the printer s hands while he was travelling up and
down Italy to gather money for the ransom of his friends in Turkish
captivity, " il correttore hebbe molti dinari non hauendo lo la lingua
Toschana ne Italiana naturale," then it was brought to Bologna and kept
another year, it was "quasi dicono veduto & riueduto, nondimeno
contiene molti errori, & qui remediar volesse, necessario sarebbe rino-
uarlo, & le mie forze sono debolissime," then follow quantities of errata.
But the most foolish thing about this Italian edition is its dedication,
Al Christianiss. et glorioso Carlo nono, re di Franza, et al felicissimo, et
vittorioso Henrico novo re de Polonia." He did not take the precaution
to prove his royal descent, and therefore the book passed unnoticed of his
brothers of France and Poland. It is ludicrous to notice how elaborately
Estienne proves his Lusignan genealogy in documents prefixed to the
French version (Paris, 1580), which is, however, dedicated no longer to two
kings, but to the edification of one boy, Guy de Saint Gelais, son of
Estienne s kinsman, Loys, of the same name.
2 In the dedication of his French version Estienne says, " Je vous ay
voulu done faire present de ceste Chronique, restant du sac de Cypre &
sauve"e des mains cruelles des Barbares. " In the Italian Chorograffia at p.
75 he says La predetta Cronica cominciando dal Re Giouanni fino a
qui, 1 ho cauata dalla cronica Greca di Giorgio Bustrone il quale era com-
pagno del Re Giacomo auanti che fusse Re, & anchora dipoi. Vero e che
noi habbiamo aggiunto alcune cose di altri Auttori, & multe altre lasciate
per breuita." Careful comparison of the parts of his work which deal with
the various classes (Parici, Perpiari, Lefteri, Albanesi, Venetian! bianchi)
and describe the government with similar passages on the same subject in
Procacci s book shows that the two undoubtedly derive this information
from the same source, since neither can possibly have copied the other.
A comparison of the brief description given of Cyprus in Florio Bustrone s
Istoria di Cipro (the Cronica alluded to) on sheets 1-12 of the MSS.
shows that both Procacci and Estienne certainly neglected it, and as
certainly used better and fuller information. Bustrone does not mention
Giovanni Podocatharo s name in his account of the ransom of King lano
(sheet 173). Estienne says that Giovanni Podocatharo sold all he had to
free the king, giving a version not unlikely to have been found in Hettore
Podocatharo s book. Procacci tells us that he used Hettore Podocatharo s
Ritratte del Regno di Cipro. The inference is irresistible that Estienne
de Lusignan derives his most interesting and important matter (found
336 APPENDIX VIII
However that may be, the title of the book in question
is Chorograffia et breve Historia universale deW Isola di
Cipro principiando al tempo di Noe per insino al 1572;
and in it we find the most ample information (from a
prejudiced source, be it said) about the Podocathari, their
first exhibition of the devoted and self-sacrificing patriotism
which characterises the family being recorded as follows :
" Giouanni Podochataro gentilhuomo Ciprioto, vendette
tutto il suo mobile & immobile, & cio che haueua, & con
quelli danari riscattb il Re dal Cairo \ al quale da indi in
poi fu imposto, che, pagasse ogni anno il tribute al Cairo :
il qual tribute fu cresciuto al tempo del Re bastardo :
dipoi 1 anno 1516, il Turco estirpo il Soldano : & quel
tribute che si pagava al Sultano, si pagaua al Turco, come
dominatore del Sultano : & hora non vuole piu il tribute ;
ma come si dice, ha preso tutta 1 Isola, & cosi e finite il
tribute."
This King lane, so loyally ransomed by Giovanni Podo-
catharo, was the father of Agnesa who married Ludovico,
Duke of Savoy ; and the title of kings of Cyprus and
Jerusalem, still attaching to the house of Savoy, is
through her derived from this monarch, of whom after his
ransom we hear that he spent the rest of his days in
continual starvation because of the constant raids of the
Mamelukes. Undiscouraged by all these reverses, lano s
epitaph (given by Bustrone) says of him :
Caesar erat bello, superans grauitate Catonem.
In the time of the "re bastardo," this lano s grandson,
a " Pietro Podochataro " figures very creditably so far
as can be ascertained. Indeed it is satisfactory to see
in Procacci and not in Bustrone) from Podocatharo s MSS. , "saved," as
he himself says, though he is talking vaguely, and appears to mean his
own book or Bustrone s " from the sack of Cyprus and snatched from
the cruel barbarians hand." This view of his debt to Podocatharo is
confirmed by the unusually familiar knowledge possessed by Estienne s
book of the doings and havings of that great family. For Bustrone s
Chronicle, see MSS., British Museum (additional MSS., Earl of Guilford),
No. 8630. Bustrone (Florio), Istoria di Cipro.
OLYMPUS AND BOCARUS IN CYPRUS 337
that the family recuperated itself financially 1 so that the
Podocathari were in a position to buy from the Venetian
Signoria (after 1489, the date of Caterina Cornaro s formal
abdication) one of the most valuable and the most ancient
of all the domains of Cyprus, Chiti or Citium (Larnaca) :
" Chitheon era citta primieramente edificata auanti d ogni
altra, &lt;$: fu edificata dal primo habitatore dell Isola, cioe
da Cethin pronepote di Noe : II che testificano li sacri
espositori, Girolamo, la Glosa ordinaria, & altri sopra al
23. capitolo di Isaia, & al secodo di Gieremia. Questa citta
e posta alia marina, discosta dalla citta di Marium cinque
leghe, & e verso mezo giorno, & hauea gia vn Porto
bello, & serrato, come dice Strabone : il quale hora e
distrutto affatto ; & si vede bene il vestigio. Questa era
citta Regale anticamente, . . . Hora la predetta citta si
chiama il casale Chiti : il quale e grande e pieno di
giardini, & d ogni frutto, & questo fu feudo di Chiarione,
ouer Gariu Lusugnano : del quale fu priuato dall ultimo Re
bastardo, &: dipoi fu venduto dalla Signoria di Venetia
alii Podochatari." 2 There is great probability in favour of
supposing that the "Re bastardo" rewarded 3 Pietro Podo-
1 See the Chorograffia, p. 30 verso, " Ma poi al tempo del Re di Cipro
bastardo, furono molti Nobili di Cipro morti, & altri fuggiuano, & altri
furono disnobilitati per le priuationi delle loro faculti : perche non volcano
adherire aesso bastardo." The confiscated estates were given to " nobili
& ignobili " from Italy, and Pietro Podocatharo (who was sent as am
bassador to Cairo in the interest of Carlotta, but changed sides on reaching
Egypt) was handsomely rewarded, and retrieved the family fortunes. Bus-
trone (197-199) gives a list of those benefited. Pietro Podocatharo (198)
comes in for enormous estates, Giovanni and Philippe, his kinsmen, get
handsome presents.
2 The parallel passage in Procacci is as follows : " ne meno d essa
(Amathus) fu seggio reale la citta di Chitheon, prima di tutte 1 altre
edificata, da Cithin, nipote di Noe, ch e posta alia Marina verso mezo
giorno, c haueua un bel porto ; hora ridotta in casalc, si chiama
Chiti, ch era le delitie di quel regno, posseduto da Hettore Podocatharo,
Cauallier Cipriotto, che di queste cose scrisse : il qual u aueua giardini
bellissimi & ripieni di preciosi frutti." The differences between this and
the corresponding passage of the Chorograffia go to show that Estienne
simply published the original text of Hettore Podocatharo.
3 Of the four names of places bestowed upon him according to Rustrone s
list (p. 198 recto], I can only locate two which were not near Chiti.
Z
338 APPENDIX VIII
catharo for his support by giving him certain rights at or near
Chiti. However that may be, the family came into regular
possession of the property when Venetian rule was estab
lished. Procacci gives a most appreciative account of the
life which Hettore Podocatharo led there, and of his generous
hospitality. Evidently this brave man lived there the life
which he loved, and the splendid courage with which he
defended his native Cyprus was born of a most deep and
loyal attachment attested at the last by the sacrifice of his
life. Against the sombre background formed by the savage
onslaught of those ruthless Turks in the last half of the
year 1570, Hettore Podocatharo at his peaceful home of
Chiti stands out as a gracious and genial representative of
all the good that might have come to miserable Cyprus if
he and such as he had been suffered to guide the counsels
of those in power. That Hettore did have great influence
at Venice is abundantly proved by the terms in which his
fugitive brother Zuanne Podocatharo apostrophises him in
a hitherto unpublished appeal which Zuanne delivered on
the 1 7th of May 1573 "auanti il serenissimo prencipe
Aluise Mocenigo, doppo la perdita del regno di Cipro."
Standing forth with the orphaned children of the heroic
Hettore by his side, Zuanne feels for the first time to the
full how much he has lost in Hettore, and how completely
alone are he and the orphans his nephews. There is a
human pathos in the situation, and a Homeric directness
in his words, that makes it well to quote them : " Dhe !
Pietosissimo Prencipe, uengavi oramai pieta di noi, risguardi
hormai Vostra Serenita con la serena fronte questi infelici
figliuoli. Questi son quelli che non hanno esperienza
alcuna di pecato, si pub noi con qualche nostro difetto siamo
posti nella miseria, che si trouamo. . . . Questi sono quelli
c hanno perduto tanta espetatione, e tale che poteua farli
uiuer per sempre contenti, e felici. Vostra Serenita risguardi
quest innocenza, risguardi quella purita, e considerando in
che grado poteuano esser, et in quale si trovino al presente,
cerchi con la sua pietade uincer in parte 1 impeso della
OLYMPUS AND BOCARUS IN CYPRUS 339
nostra fortuna. . . . Dhe ! Clementissimo Principe, aprite
hormai le uostre misericordiose bracchia, riceuete noi con
quella carita, che si richiede ad un tanto Prencipe, e il debito
della pieta Christiana, e la riputatione del uostro benign-
issimo Impero, e per edificatione, et essempio, delli uostri
altri sudditi porgeteci hormai il uostro Clementissimo agiuto,
accio possiamo sostentar questi figli, accio possiamo
recuperar gl altri, che sono dispersi per le bande degl
infedeli, e qua li potiemo hauere, qua li cauaremo fuori
delle mani de nostri empij nemici, quh. li metteremo nel
consortio d altri Christiani, qua li donaremo gl amplessi
materni : l ci para assai esser ristoradi di cotanta nostra
perdita. Ma hoi me ! me misero ! o me infelice ! perche
non sono io atto a poter con quelle efficace parole, che si
conuiene persuader questo cosi pietoso offitio ! Doue sei
sfortunato fratello, qual crudele et improuisa morte mi t ha
tolto ? Perche non sei qui in tanta necessita presente ad
aiutarmi? Tu, fratello, hai potuto molte altre volte in
questo medesimo luogho per beneficio della nostra Patria
con le tue parole intenerir i cuori di questi sapientissimi
senatori ad impetrar quanto sapessi dimandare, ed io col
tuo medesimo spirito rappresentando questi tuoi orfani
figli, e questi altri delli tuoi amici e parenti, non potrb
mouer a pieta li piu pietosi Christiani del mondo ! Tu,
fratello, molte fiate col tuo ornato parlar hai potuto saluar
la uitta, le facolta, et honor de mold, et io in questo nostro
esterminio non potrb impetrar dalla benignita istessa il
uiuer de tuoi figliuoli, che si muorono della fame ! Almeno,
fratello, poiche qui presente esser non puoi, poscia che di
1 Several of these captives were ransomed, see the Rdatione di Ales-
sandro Podocatharo de successi di Famagosta, Venice, (?) 1656. He gives a
moving account of the horrible death of Bragadino, and of various horrors.
He tells in detail of the devastation of the Messarea, the Carpass, part of
the Viscontado, and of the Baffo district. He says that he was ransomed
for 325 cecchini. Cicogna mentions a letter from Pietro Podocatharo of
March 3rd, 1577, to Cardinal Comendone, where he says that Livio Podo
catharo came to Venice for money to ransom himself, his brother Giovanni,
and his son. Probably the Giovanni in question is the Zuanne who is
speaking.
340
APPENDIX VIII
far questo officio non t e concesso, tu insieme con 1 altre
anime beate delli nostri Cittadini li quali si hanno tanto
volontariamente, fedelmente, e prontamente offerti alia
morte per la Patria, presentatevi tutti insieme nell imagina
tion di questi Clementissimi Signori, scoprite loro in questo
ponto le uostre crudelissime ferite, rappresentate il lago del
uostro sangue sparso, mostrate le uostre ardenti ceneri e
con quest Imagine tutti congionti insieme, come se fosse
uiui, aprite le uostre supplicheuoli braccia alii misericordosi
piedi di questo gran Prencipe, con lui vi delete, con lui ui
lamentate, con lui piangete, da lui per noi e per uostri
figliuoli impetrate qualche pietade, e qualche agiuto
accio noi raconsolati alquanto possiamo passar questo
pocco di uiuer che auanza, sotto la santa e benigna
protettione di questa gloriosia Republica, la qual piacera
alia Maesta di Dio di conservar, et crescer con ogni felice
euento." l
With this moving apostrophe made in his name, Hettore
Podocatharo, " quel magnanimo gentil huomo " disappears
from view. Procacci s description of Troodos- Olympus
given above was no doubt inspired by Hettore s fuller
account, but still it gives little of his "ornato parlar," which
was evidently as well remembered by his contemporaries as
his wit. One of the most valuable parts of the precious
MS. which Procacci saw and praised is, however, preserved
in the description of Mount Olympus-Troodos given in
Estienne de Lusignan s Chorograffia. This account of the
great mountain of Cyprus has only to be compared with
Procacci s to appear plainly as the original. " L altra parte
delli monti comincia da Solia citta antica discosta da Cor-
machiti 6. leghe in circa : & vanno essi monti per mezo
dell Isola insino al monte della Croce ; il qual monte
risponde al capo Masotto, & li monti vengono li vicino, &
vanno a marina per insino a Baffo ; & poi voltano dalP
altra parte, & vanno a marina a marina per insino a Solia.
In mezo de questi monti e il monte Olimpo ; il quale in
1 Marciana, Classe VII., Cod. DCXLIX.
OLYMPUS AND BOCARUS IN CYPRUS 341
greco si adimanda Trohodos ; l il quale e altissimo ; &
come si ha salito alcuni monti, come si e al piede di esso ;
& ancho e dibisogno salire vna lega buona, che sono miglia
3. & quando si e giunto alia cima, si discopre quasi il mare
intorno dell Isola ; eccetto che da Carpasso, che non si pb
bene conoscer la terra : perb si vede bene il mare. Vedesi
anchora li monti di Cilicia, & quando e chiaro nello
spuntare del Sole, si vede anchora li monti della Soria
[Syria]. Questo monte e pieno di alberi di ogni sorte ; &
ha tma pianura grande in cima. II piede del monte cir-
conda 18. leghe che fanno miglia 54. &: ad ogni lega e
posto vn monasterio de Calloiri [an Italianised form of
KaAoy//poi, the modern Greek for monk or priest] ouer
Monaci di San Basilio : quali Monasterii sono pieni d ogni
frutto, & di fontane in abondanza; onde questi, & altri,
che si ritrouano nell Isola, sono li sollazzi delli Cipriotti al
tempo della estade. ... In cima del monte Olimpo e vna
Chiesa di San Michele, & li di fuora e un sasso grande
simile a quelli, che si ritrouano nelli torrenti : & intorno
intorno a quel monte alto vna lega per insino al piede non
si ritroua vn altro simile : & li Greci villani dicono una
fauola, che quella pietra e 2 quando che 1 area di Noe
riposb di sopra : & questa e grande, perche quattro
huomini apena la possono eleuare da terra : & quando che
nell Isola sta assai a piouer ; uanno tutti quelli Casali
vicini del monte in processione in cima di quell alto
monte, & con certi legni leuano in alto quel sasso, &
1 This seems to mean that the " nobili " always called it "Olympo,"
while the villani used the name Trohodos. See the map of Ortelius
(1573), prepared for these "nobili," where Olympus is the only name
given, and Trohodos does not appear. Bustrone identifies the Monte
della Croce as the Olympus where was a temple of Aphrodite Acraea.
This of course is a blunder, since that temple was in the district of the
Carpass. The real Olympus Bustrone calls Lambadista or Chionodes,
appealing to the author of the life of S. Barnaba, who does not bear him
out. The modern name he gives as Triodos, MS. p. 10, verso.
2 There is confusion here, as often happens, because Estienne did
not understand Italian, and has, for that reason, made sad work of his
original.
342 APPENDIX VIII
sernpre cantando : & cosi finite, dicono, che non passa
molto, che pioue, & assai ; laqual cosa io giudico essere
superstitione ; perb lasso il giudicio a chi ne ha cura." l
Here then is a description of Mount Olympus of Cyprus,
and an identification of it with the Troodos, which might
well be set up against the authority of Strabo, if Strabo,
read as he should be, were not wholly in agreement with
it. It is not rash to assume that Hettore Podocatharo
was educated in one of the great universities of Italy. 2
He was acquainted with the text of Strabo, and yet never
dreamed of suspecting him of identifying Olympus with the
Monte Delia Croce. But, more than that, his long life in
Cyprus, where he was born, the long line of Cypriote
ancestry from which he sprung, the traditional sympathy
with the down-trodden Parici descendants of the mass of
people found in the island by King Richard Coeur de Lion,
and sold by him first to the Knights Templars, and then,
upon their speedy expulsion, to Guy (Guido or Guyes) of
Lusignan which characterised the Podocathari, and none
more than Hettore himself, all this makes of him the
representative of any continuous traditions which may
have survived in Cyprus. One of the most likely things to
have survived from days even before Strabo s time would
certainly be the ancient name of the delight of all the
nobility of Cyprus, their refuge from the infamous heats of
lower parts of the island Mount Troodos -Olympus. I
therefore have no hesitation whatsoever in quoting Hettore
Podocatharo in proof against all available authorities,
ancient and modern, of the identity in ancient Greek and
Roman times of the Troodos and Mount Olympus.
None of the numerous and confusing accounts of the
mountains in question, given after the sixteenth century,
1 Chorograffia, pp. 4 verso, 5 recto.
2 Cicogna mentions a letter from Hettore to his brother Pietro, who
was at college under Paolo Manuzio. This justifies the assumption
that Hettore had been to college himself. He could hardly have taken
the position among learned Venetians which he plainly occupied unless he
had been at a university in Italy.
OL YMPUS AND BOCAR US IN C YPR US 343
need now detain us. With the occupation of Cyprus by
the Turks all opportunity of understanding anything about
it at first hand was at an end. Perhaps it is worth while
to note that the much admired geographer, Abraham
Ortelius, called by Cambden " eximius veteris geographiae
restaurator," did nothing for the understanding of Cyprus
beyond repeating what Bordone had said, appropriating
Procacci s work without acknowledgment, and giving the
testimony of his map of 1573 to show that the name
Olympus was current then for Mount Troodos.
Very similar to the unsystematised and ill-digested treat
ment of Ortelius is that which John Blaeuw x gives to Cyprus
in 1662. Blaeuw takes Ortelius map of 1573, in flagrant
disagreement with a smaller one elsewhere in the same
book, without any acknowledgment ; then he accompanies
it with Procacci s commentary, so far as the Olympus is
concerned. Plainly no one cared or knew about Cyprus
in the seventeenth century, although a multitude of maps
and descriptions of the island continued to appear. The
one exception is a belated Venetian " Isolario " by the
enterprising Geographer in Ordinary to the republic, Coron-
elli. His Isolario appeared in 1696, and is absolutely
correct in giving (according to Strabo) a promontory
Olympus, which lies close to the north-eastern extremity of
the island, and then a Mount Olympus, which is the
Troodos half-way between Alesandreta and Piscopia.
Coronelli may have had before him the old MS. of Strabo
(still at Venice), which I have quoted as punctuating the
passage about Olympus correctly, but he certainly did have
in mind the traditions about Cyprus and its Olympus,
which Venice still preserved from the days of her ^gean
supremacy. No one knowing Cyprus well, and going to
Strabo and Ptolemy, would differ from Coronelli, I am
sure.
1 It was really the work of his father William, quite as much as his.
See its dedication as " Parentis sui suosque labores geographicos."
Various editors and compilers were employed.
344 APPENDIX VIII
The only reason that existed between 1675 an d 1870
for connecting with Cyprus the name Bocams as that of a
river or of anything else, was a curious series of blunders
made in a posthumously published MS. by John Meursius.
But then Dr. J. P. Six discovered one more letter than the
Due de Luynes or Dr. Deeke could see on a coin in the
British Museum. Dr. Six is the greatest expert in the
reading of Cypriote characters, and while he was in doubt
all was uncertain ; but he has finally decided that that in
scription on that coin will not after all bear his first inter
pretation, and does not therefore contain any name even
remotely resembling " Bocarus " or PO-KA-RO-SE. 1 What
now remains is to see what are the passages in ancient
authorities where the name Bocarus occurs. The lexico
grapher Hesychius has made the following entry :
Trora/xo? ev SaAa/zin IK rov A/ca^ai/ros opovs
This passage gives for the island of Salamis two names not
ordinarily seen upon its maps, Acamas, as the name of a
mountain, and Bocarus, as the name of a river. This last
name does appear on the map of Salamis given by K. O.
Miiller in Ersch and Gruber s Allgemeine Encyclopaedic
(see the article "Attica"). In the Etymologiciun Magnum
may be found : B12KAP02 : To eap viro T/xuj^viW Trapa TO
TO&gt; f3to) -%apav (freptiv, /3co^apo^, KOU /3w/&lt;apoS. Kai Trora/Jios
Se 2aAa/zti/os oirrw KaAov/xei/os. From this Hesychius gains
confirmation, and we learn moreover that the name Bocarus
meant spring in the speech of the men of Troezen, just
across the Saronic gulf from the Salaminian river Bocarus.
From Stephanus and Eustathius 3 no additional information
but further confirmation is to be derived. After these
1 According to a note shown me at the British Museum as containing
Dr. Six s amended reading, the letters are not what he first thought them,
and the word should begin, not end, with the sigma syllable.
2 Meursius, as will appear, cites this one passage four times. Once of
the river Bocarus on the island of Salamis, thrice as referring to a stream
in Cyprus.
3 See his commentary on the Iliad, ii. 637, and on Dionysius Periegetcs,
OLYMPUS AND BOCARUS IN CYPRUS 345
commentators and lexicographers, it is well to search Strabo.
In his ninth book, at page 394, you may read : Bw/capos
8 fcrrlv kv ^aAa/zivi Trora/xd?, 6 vvv B&lt;i&gt;JcaAia KaAor/^cvos. Then
comes to hand a passage in that dreariest of poems, Lyco-
phron s Alexandra, vv. 447-452, where Teucer, Agapenor,
Acamas, and two others are spoken of as five early colonists
of Cyprus, which is called by two of its most obscure and
completely forgotten names, Sphekia and Kerastia. Lyco-
phron, not content with these hard names, alludes to Paphos
in Cyprus by the forgotten name of its river Satrachus, 1 to
Curium on the coast near Paphos by the epithet vXaT^s,
there given to Apollo (see Devia Cypria, 24 and ff.), to
Paphian Aphrodite by an obscure name given her at Sparta
coupled with the qualification " Zerynthian," alluding to a
cave in Thrace where the goddess was worshipped. Finally,
having thus done every ingenious thing to prevent our know
ing that the heroes went to Cyprus, and settled near the
shrine of Aphrodite at Paphos and at Curium, Lycophron
plays a final trick upon our wits by describing Salamis
(from which Teucer departed for Cyprus) as the " Caves of
Cychreus, and the dells of Bocarus." Salaminian Cychreus
was, like Cecrops, half man and half serpent, and, by virtue
of the lower half of him, a denizen of caves. Now that by
a tedious process of excavation their meaning has been laid
bare, these lines of Lycophron may be cited in full :
1 Satrachus is a name which wanders up and down on the various
maps of Cyprus. Usually it is bestowed upon a river rising from Troodos-
Olympus. Sometimes a city is improvised and called Satrachos. The
passage of Lycophron given in the text, together with the following four
lines of Nonnus, Dionysiac. xiii. 458 ff. , ought to make it certain that the
Diarrhizo at Old Paphos bore the name Satrachos or Sestrachos. For
the most learned and conclusive paper on the subject, see the Philologus
for 1874, vol. xxxiii. Dr. Robert Unger there (pp. 419-430) proves that,
wherever the Bocarus may have been, it was not at Paphos, because the
Satrachos was there as Nonnus says :
e vddrwv
^X L BaXaffffiybvov Ha-pirjs vv^-prfiov vdup
^.drpaxov i/j.ep6eis, tidi TroXXd/as old pa \nrovcra
KUTT/HS av e~xo.lv tafff \e\ov /mtvov vita
346 APPENDIX VIII
01 Trerre Se 2(/y/ceiai/ eis KepaariW
KOU ^Larpayov /?Aw^avre? YAarov re y^v,
Mop&lt;(b TrapoiK ijO ova i TTJV
o fji^v Trar/DO? /AO/xc/xucri
Kv&gt;(/3eroS avrpeov Bw/capoi re va^arcov,, . . .
" But five there are who shall house them near to the Zeryn-
thian Morpho (Paphian Aphrodite) and go to the Horned
Isle Sphekeian (Cyprus), even to Satrachos (Paphos on the
Satrachos l ), and the land of Hylates (Curium, where Apollo
Hylates was worshipped). By his father s blame the first
(Teucer) driven otit from the caves of Cychreus and the dells
of the Bocarus (Salamis). ..."
These are the only places in ancient literature where the
Bocarus is mentioned. And yet many find it difficult to
give up the idea that there is some authority to show that
the ancients called a river at Old Paphos (the river Satra
chos) by the name Bocarus. This is not the case, how
ever, with Bursian, who gives, in his description of Salamis,
the following account of its streams (i. p. 363 of his
large work) : " Zahlreiche . . . Gussbache, deren ansehn-
lichster (wahrscheinlich der an der Siidwestseite der Insel)
den Namen Bfa&gt;jca/&gt;o?, spater BuicaAta fiihrte, durchfahren
die Abhange der ziemlich sparlich mit Strandkiefern und
Strauchwerk bewachsenen Berge." Ancient authorities
should be the only warrant for ancient usage, but still let
us further appeal to John Blaeuw and his Atlas Major of
1662, already cited above. The description there given of
Salamis is as follows : " Posita est ea contra Eleusin, Atticae
urbem, 6 confinia Megaridis Atticaeque. Longitudo eius
est stadiorum 70. Primarium insulae oppidnm ei cog-
1 See John Meursius own note on this line in his juvenile commen
tary ; see also Tzetzes, who speaks of a town and a river named Satrachus.
Jacob Geel and Emperius seem to have written in 1773 saying that Paphos
was on the Satrachus, but I have failed to find the letters in question.
See also Musgrave s note on Eurip. Bacchae, 404: " Audiamus modo
Sestrachi apud Nonnum descriptionem . . . Sestrachus enim dicitur, non
Bocarus, qui Paphum alluit fluvius."
OLYMPUS AND BOCARUS IN CYPRUS 347
nomine est ; et Bocarus sive Bucolius amnis, mine If alls
Jlunnia indigttatur" Whoever, among the numerous con
tributors to " Blaevius " Atlas Major, may have written
this description of Salamis, certainly could not yet have
heard of the transference to Cyprus of this Salaminian river
Bocarus ; for it did not take place, so far as the world at
large was concerned, until 1675, when John George Graev
or Graevius promulgated at Amsterdam the Cyprus, Rhodes,
and Crete of Meursius. The writer in Blaeuw s Atlas did,
however, have access to other works of Meursius, published
during the author s life, which ended at Soroe in 1639.
Meursius, in his Pisistratus, cites, with no word of dissent
ing comment, Strabo s account of the Bocarus as a river in
Salamis off Attica. This proves at least that the learned
Meursius was not always of his later opinion about the
Bocarus.
In fact, without unduly disparaging the merit of Meursius
as a pioneer in that laborious research which, when accom
panied by a sound judgment, is the bone and sinew of
scholarship, I may say of his work in general that he accumu
lates quotations for the sake of having many of them, and
often falls into the error of using the same authority on
both sides of a difficult question. Meursius lacked common
sense ; his work has not the luminous and life-giving quality
that would have made him a worthy successor to the tradi
tions of Erasmus or have won the unqualified admiration of
men of learning who came after him. 1 The most concise
qualification of Meursius and his scholarship will be found
in Professor Frederick Allen s address on the University
of Leyden, given as president of the American Philological
Association in 1882. Professor Allen there said that
Meursius, the antiquary, had great diligence and some
1 Of Johann Friedrich Gronovius, for instance, who came to a pro
fessorship at Leyden in 1658, upwards of thirty years after Meursius
resigned. It is possible that he was a pupil of Meursius ; they certainly
carried on a correspondence. His opinion of Meursius is perhaps re
flected by his son Jacob Gronovius, who succeeded him in the
professorship.
348 APPENDIX VIII
constructive power, and that his monographs laid a good
foundation for subsequent work. Every one who is in
terested in Cyprus is in fact interested in Meursius, and
owes to his industry a debt of gratitude. It is therefore
a thankless task to talk of the serious errors in Cypriote
geography whose origin can be traced to Meursius. But
for all that Meursius may fairly be held responsible for
the idea current in his day among scholars that ancient
geography was independent of the configuration of the
earth. He certainly has treated Cyprus as a sort of fairy
land, where rivers may run over mountain-tops in order
to enable scholars to defend the most random and un
premeditated emendations.
The fact is that John Meursius is one of those who
early showed a fatal precocity. At the age of thirteen, says
an appreciative biographer (Schramm), he was preternatural ly
fond of Greek : " Quippe iam Anno aetatis XIII carmen
Graecum suo Auctori hand inficiandum elaborabat." This
is faint praise, not at all like that bestowed upon the
feat by which Meursius in his sixteenth year indicated his
preference for the least poetical of Greek writers. He
actually wrote at that tender age a commentary on Lyco-
phron ! It is for this that D. Heinsius praises him and
declares him an Apollo :
Talis erat, famam cui pristina tempora debent,
Meursius, et debent tempora nostra suam ;
Qui Siculi vatis, 1 noctemque Lycophronis atri,
Dispulit et Phoebus post tria lustra fuit.
Meursius taught Greek at Leyden as professor for four
teen years, and then was glad to get away from his native
country and accept the post of Professor of Danish History
at Soroe, on the island of Seeland. Thither he went in
1625, escaping from Calvinism and the Synod of Dort, and
abandoning for the most part his Greek studies. If there
had been any chance of his further intellectual growth, this
1 This alludes to Meursius juvenile essays on Theocritus.
OLYMPUS AND BOCARUS IN CYPRUS 349
change from Leyden to Denmark cut it off. His publi
cations on classical subjects ceased, and his study of
Danish history was so perfunctory that he never even
learned enough Danish to master the most necessary
records. Hence when Lami asked for the MS. left be
hind on this subject, he was assured that there was nothing
extant which would not if published mar the reputation
already achieved by Meursius. As a boy he tried to do
work which many a man would shirk ; in the prime of his
manhood at forty-five he was subject to lapses of judgment,
and at times he could become hopelessly infantile. 1 He
did, however, preserve to the last that command over many
books which Graevius praises, saying of Meursius : " Nihil
enim hoc viro in evolvendis omnibus omnium aetatum
scriptoribus qui ex illetabile illi barbariei nocte salvi in
lucem horum temporum emerserunt, fieri potuit diligentius."
It is this wonderful acquaintance of his with swarms of
writers whose dulness few ever had the courage to penetrate
that gives to Meursius work on Cyprus its great value.
As I am speaking of his shortcomings in that work, let me
first quote competent criticisms of defects in his work at
large. To begin with his mechanical habit of always trans
lating Greek quotations into Latin, it would seem that he
sometimes made these translations while he was half asleep.
In some remarks appended to Meursius Ceramicus see
Lami s complete edition Gronovius 2 objects, as well he
1 In justice to his later work it should be remembered that he long
suffered from and eventually died of a most painful disease.
2 Lami publishes a curious letter which shows that Abraham Gronovius
had not forgotten how thoroughly his father, Jacob and for that matter
his grandfather had found out the weak points in Meursius scholarship.
Abraham, though not of much learning or consequence, was, if only for
the name he bore, deemed of sufficient consequence to receive Lami s
circular describing the projected edition of Meursius. In ans\ver he
writes, April 1736, to Valentio Gonzaga, complimenting Italian printing,
saying : Xon possum non recordari felicitatis qua olirn istic usi fuerunt
avus meus, Parens atque Patntns." He then feelingly alludes to the
odium which Meursius incurred by devoting time to the study of the
Christian fathers : Quamvis hac sedula opera sua, et Christiano
digna, ingens odium Meursius apud nescio quos dum inter vivos ageret,
350 APPENDIX VIII
may, to Meursius translation of KaAAtVn/ ?} G /j/sa TO
TTporcpov " Pulcherrima venatio prius ; " he also finds fault
with Meursius for confusing Hermes KaTcu/^a-n/s with Zeus
of the same epithet and a clap of thunder: " Quae sunt
arenae sine calce," too much sand and no mortar, humorously
adds the indulgent Gronovius. There are indeed many
of these trackless waste places in Meursius best work.
James Brucker truthfully says that Meursius was much
imposed upon " in Themide Attica," where he quotes as
the real laws of Athens fictions composed as rhetorical
exercises. Also Brucker is right in speaking severely of
Meursius " De denario Pythagorico." *
Let us turn now to chapter xxii. of the first of Meursius
two books on Cyprus, as printed by Graevius, reprinted by
Lami, and revised in an autograph MS. of the Marcian
Library. From this last 2 in Meursius own handwriting,
with his own corrections and additions, I shall make my
in se contraxerit. Ego vero ab ipso iuventutis meae lubrico, patcrnis in-
stitutis ita formatus, eos qui scripta vel ad ritus vel ad historiam veteris
Ecclesiae spectantia primi luce donaverint . . . Meursium . . . Monte-
falconem . . . venerari nunquam desinam."
1 It would seem that some rated Meursius so low that they threw cold
water on Lami s idea of publishing his complete works. See the letters in
answer to Lami s circular printed at the beginning of the Florence edition
(Florence, 1741-63, 12 vols. folio). See also the end of Lami s dedication.
2 Meursius, while in Denmark, did no classical work apparently except
this one on Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete. Of this he made two copies, both
of which came by his death into the hands of his son. One of these
passed by sale into the library of George Seefeld, out of which it was forcibly
taken in 1658 when Charles X. of Sweden made his famous march across the
frozen Belt. Most of the looted books, and Meursius 1 Cyprus, etc. among
them, were added to the royal library at Stockholm. Thence Graevius bor
rowed the Meursian MS. in 1675, and byway of recognising the kindness of
the loan dedicated the printed book to Charles XI. whose father stole the
MS. All this happened thirty-nine years after Meursius died ; twelve
years later this MS. was burned with the rest of the Stockholm library.
John Meursius, junior, being a worldly-minded person, had presented the
other autograph MS. of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete (one which had received
annotations and various polishings and reshapings in the last years of his
father s life) to the Senate and Doge of Venice with a request that he be
recompensed for this and other services by the title of Cavaliere di San
Marco." This title was conferred, and the three volumes one for each
island, Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete were duly consigned to entire oblivion
OL YMPUS AND BO CA R US IN C YPR US 351
quotations. After citing a line from a Homeric Hymn to
Aphrodite, where the Cypriote town of Salamis is men
tioned, Meursius goes on : " Perluebat autem earn l (Salami-
nem) fluvius Bocarus, ex Acamante monte profluens.
Hesychius : Boticapos Trora/xos ev 2aA.a/xivi, e/&lt; rov A/ca/zcu Tos
opous fapofjievos, Bocarus fluvius in Salamine^ ex Acamante
monte profluens? The writer of this has apparently never
dreamt that Cyprus really exists to check by its shape
any suggestions or emendations. Such a thing as a map
of Cyprus he might easily have had that of Abraham
Ortelius he has never looked at. In chapter xxvii. he
again quotes Hesychius, whose account of Acamas he
in the library of the Council of Ten. Thus, thirty-three years before
Graevius published the unfinished Stockholm MS. , the completed one
was placed beyond the reach of probable publication. When the library
of the Council of Ten was dispersed and for the most part absorbed into
the Marcian library (1795), there were no longer three but two parts
of the MS. Cyprus and Rhodes. The MS. on Crete was apparently
stolen or lost at some earlier time, and it was finally bought by Cicogna.
With his books and MSS. it passed into the Museo Correr, where I
have examined it in detail, as also the Rhodes MS. in the Marcian
library. To the Marcian MS. of Cyprus I gave even more time, com
paring it with Graevius Amsterdam edition, after satisfying myself that
there is no independent value attaching to Lami s Florence reprint of
Graevius. (Lami has corrected a few gross misprints of Graevius, but did
not for instance use the table of errata given at the end of Graevius
Crete, nor did he rectify cross references, omissions, or wrong numbering
of chapters.) As reproductions of the MS. burnt at Stockholm, both of
these editions of Amsterdam and of Florence are disgraceful. The Venice
MS. shows enough about the Stockholm version to make that much
absolutely certain. As for the difference between the Stockholm MS. and
the Venetian revised one, I challenge any one to find a single error of judg
ment which Meursius, on mature second thought, saw fit to correct. He has
made himself doubly answerable for all the worst of his blunders by rewrit
ing them in smoother Latin and by a careful index, where he passes them
all and assigns to each its place in alphabetical succession. But it must
be allowed that he has added many new and some important citations.
These give a slight value to the Venice MS., but they need never be
published.
1 Curiously enough, no one has ever taken this blunder of Meursius
seriously, as many have taken the blunder about Paphos and the Boc
arus. The Pediaeus is too prominent a river to have its name changed
with ease by any one. Perhaps if the name Satrachus had been equally
well known the Bocarus would never have invaded Cyprus.
352 APPENDIX VIII
thus translates : " Acamanta indefessum, et nomen pro-
prium unius filiorum Antenoris." He quoted just above
from Sextus Empiricus to show that Acamas was a son
of Theseus, from whom the promontory was named,
and now adds from Hesychius : " Etiam mons in Cypro,
ita dictus, nominatus vero est ab Acamante, Demophontis
quidem fratre sed These! filio, ex hoc Bocarus amnis
profluebat. Idem Hesychius alio loco. ..." Then
he repeats the quotation and translation given in chapter
xxii. The heading of chapter xxx. Meursius has written
out as follows: " Fluuii. Aous. Bocarus, Locus Euripidis
correctus. Salaminem, et Paphum, perluebat in plures alueos
distributus, etc" Then in the body of the chapter, 1 when
he has disposed of the Aous, 2 he again attacks the Bocarus :
" Bocarus. Hesychius . . ." here follows the same quota
tion twicemade before "Scio ab aliis 3 Bocarum in Salamine
Atticae commemorari : sed hie fuerit sane Cypri, in qua
Acamas, unde ortus. Ac corruptum esse puto eius nomen
apud Euripidem in Bacchis
I Koi/JLav TTOTI rav Kvirpov
Nacrov ras A &lt;/&gt;/oo8mxs
av
poai
Utinam veniam in Ciprum
Insulam Veneris :
Et Paphum, guam centum habentis ostia
Bocari fluuii fluxus
Foecundant sine imbribus.
1 This chapter is practically identical in Graevius, Lami, and the
Marcian MSS. , probably because the latter has by accident no margin for
additions.
2 The Aous, be it said, is the name anciently given to Mount Santa
Croce, so constantly miscalled Olympus.
3 These "other" people include himself, in the passage of his Pisistratzis,
and also in his early commentary on Lycophron, line 450.
4 I take it that Engel is responsible for the adoption of this absurd
invention of Meursius, Ross following him.
OLYMPUS AND BOCARUS IN CYPRUS 353
Hodie editur, Bapftdpov Trorapov, Barbari fluuii^ Ubi
etiam obseruandus : Paphum quoque perluisse, aut alluisse :
et in plures alueos scissum proluxisse."
I suppose that a river which could flow from the
Acamas to the sea at Salamis could also empty into the
sea through a hundred mouths at Paphos, but it would
certainly, in so doing, crowd out the other Paphian river
called Barbarus, which Meursius mentions on the strength
of this same passage in Euripides at the fourteenth chapter
of this same book. The heading of this chapter, in Meur
sius own hand, runs as follows : " Paphus antiqua ; quam
Agieos condidit ; Typhonis nlius ; sive Cinyras ; sive
Paphus unde dicta & quando condita : prius Erythra
appelata. In excelso loco sita agro pingui, quern sine
pluuia Barbarus fluuius irrigabat," etc. Then in the body
of the chapter comes, after an account of the excellent
fertility of the surroundings of Paphos : " Et irrigabat
fluuius Barbarus, etiam sine ulla pluuia, Euripides
Bacchis
Tld(f&gt;ov av e/carocTTo/xot
Bapfidpov 1 TTora/jiov poal
KapTT iov(r iv dvofM/Spot.
Et Paphum quam centum ostia Jiabentis
Barbari fluuii fluxus
Frugiferam reddunt sine imbribiis"
The indices, carefully prepared by Meursius for this book,
and written by his own hand in the Venice MS., show both
the Bocarus and the Barbarus, 2 as well as the name of
Euripides among the authors " qui hie illustrantur,
emendantur aut errare ostenduntur." The object of this
1 Mannert and others are guilty of taking the capital R of this line as
seriously as Meursius does. It was zeal in correcting this mistake that led
Engel to leap from the frying-pan into the fire and speak of a " vielarmiges
Fliisschen, der von den alten Bokarus, nicht Barbarus . . . genannt war"
(Cyprus, i. p. 126).
- These are far complcter than the indices which Graevius published in
his edition. Probably these last were done by some hard-pressed scribe
of Amsterdam.
2 A
354 APPENDIX VIII
long account of much blundering will be reached if a com
parison of the above passages will only show that Meursius
Cyprus is an unsteady guide, and that until it was written
the Bocarus was never connected either by uttered speech
or in writing, or on any map, coin, or inscription, with
Cyprus where it has no place.
VIII
APOLLO AT DELOS
THE place of our choice when first we set foot on Delos is
the altar where Odysseus worshipped in the spring-time of
our world.
" At Delos once by Apollo s altar I saw thy like," says
Odysseus the castaway to Princess Nausicaa, going on to
compare that maiden s peerless beauty and grace to " a
palm s tender shoot growing upward." 1 Such a vision, as
of a delicate tree uplifting its graceful branches and exquisite
stem against the pure and glowing sky of some well-loved
Italian picture, is a fitting symbol of the worship of Delian
Apollo and his sister Artemis, guardians of purity and truth
for Hellas and the ancient world.
Purification and purity, these two words must always be
on men s lips when they talk of Delos. The spiritual needs
and the moral perfections which these words imply were in
the hearts of the votaries who came to worship and observe
the rights prescribed. Unspeakable feelings and inex
plicable associations clustered for religious Greeks about
the story of Leto s wanderings and her final deliverance
1 Odyssey, vi. 162 and ff.
356 APOLLO AT DELOS vm
upon the barren Delian rock the birth of Apollo and
Artemis. 1
All the efforts of poets, philosophers, geographers, and
historians have been expended in the most various utterance
of the terror and the pity, the awful gladness that assailed
the mind when contemplating Delos, and the moment
when Apollo "leaped forth to the light of day." 2 Certain
pious representations of the birth of the Virgin and of
various saints may be appealed to as a Christian analogy.
We hear from Theognis 3 how at that hour " The universal
shores of Delos all were loaded with ambrosial fragrance,
and the immense earth was moved to laughter, while re
joicing visited the depths of gray ocean." "Earth smiled
beneath her," says the Homeric bard 4 of Leto, and we
hear from Euripides in two of his most pathetic strains 5
how the " first parent of palm-trees and the earliest growth
of the laurel " were called into being for the comfort of
Leto, the mother. Her bed was near the Inopus, a stream
specially hallowed in the minds of latter-day believers by its
fabulous connection with the far-off river Nile whose floods
found an underground way to rocky Delos. 6 Moreover
Leto had close at hand the most sacred lake, which in
some versions of the birth-legend quite takes the place of
the Inopus, and in almost all is mentioned with a peculiar
1 According to the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo (16 and ff. )
Artemis was born on Ortygia and Apollo on Delos. Baumeister seems
justified in rejecting these lines. Ortygia was an older name for Delos.
Some have tried to make out that it means Rhenea.
2 Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo, 119.
3 Bergk s ed. , vv. 7-10.
4 Hymn to Delian Apollo, 118.
5 Hecuba, 459 ; Iph. Taur. noo.
6 Strabo, 271, Callimachus s Hymn to Delos, 206 ff. See also the
sonnets on " Sdiles " in the curious book of Bartolommeo da li Sonnetti.
The story of to-day substitutes the Jordan for the Nile.
vin APOLLO AND ARTEMIS BORN AT DELOS 357
reverence. 1 From the predestined moment of fate when
Apollo and Artemis were born, Delos was changed : " Of gold
from that hour were all her foundations, the ripples of her
wheel-shaped lake were liquid gold, golden was the sheltering
palm-tree, Inopus rolled a flood all gold, and golden was the
ground from which the mother lifted up her son new-born." 2
" A flush of golden flowers, as it were a forest flowering on
a mountain-peak, covered the chosen island where no flowers
had grown till then." 3 To-day a wealth of flowers, gold and
red, is almost the only remnant of past glories that time and
man s destructive hand have left on Delos.
Few scenes upon which the religious imagination of man
has loved to dwell have been made more touching or filled
more full of the pathos which consoles than the stay upon
Delos of lonely Leto, 4 who sealed with suffering an " argu
ment of never ending love." Euripides discoursing upon this
theme might use the further words of Shakspeare saying
The pretie and sweet maner of it
Forst those waters from me, which I would have stopt,
But I had not so much of man in me
But all my mother came into my eyes,
And gave me up to tears.
Truly human are the "tricklings of tears down dropping
fast " whereof the exiled maidens speak in the play just
after their thoughts have dwelt upon the touching tale of
1 Herod, ii. 170. - Callimachus Hymn to Delos, 260 ff.
3 Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo, 135 and 139, Baumeister s text,
cf. ibid. 53 and ff.
4 The literary record of Leto s character is less vivid and complete
than would be expected from the prominence given to her in various
pictorial and sculptured records. Hesiod gives, however, a most beautiful
account of her, ThcogoHv, 406 and ff. "She was a comforter always,
and gentle to mortal men as to the deathless gods, a comforter from the
beginning, the most soothing presence of all on Olympus."
35 APOLLO AT DELOS vm
Leto, into which they plaintively weave the sorrows of their
loneliness and exile. 1
Bird, that adown the rock-ridged main,
Halcyon, a pitiful refrain
Singest, to all thy knowers known,
For husband lost thy tuneful moan
Shrilled forth ! be other lays to thine
Likened, a wingless songster s mine,
For noon-tide throngs in Greece my yearning strain,
Yearning for Artemis, easer of pain,
Xeath Cynthus heights abiding where
Thrive palms with delicate leafage clean,
And laurels tender shoots and fair,
Sprouts of the olive blest, gray-green,
That Leto s birth-pangs dear helped bear ;
There swirls the lake s disc too in eddying coils
Whereon the sweet-voiced swan is seen
Who for the muse s sake melodious toils.
The religious -minded Greek might well attach an im
portance to the commonest things in such a land of miracles
as Delos. For the very island itself had been originally a
wanderer over the seas, driven forth from the starry heavens
where it shone in the beginning. 2 When the twin gods
1 Iph. Taur. 1089-1105.
2 There is a curious confusion of geography, astronomy, and myth
ology in accounts given all of them by late writers such as Apollodorus,
Callimachus of Delos before the birth of Apollo and Artemis. The
learned fabulist Hyginus has gathered them together ; and underlying the
whole was probably some genuine religious myth at which we dimly guess.
It appears that according to one current version Poseidon hid in his watery
depths the floating island with Leto upon it while the grim emissary of
Hera, Pytho, vainly searched for her. This harmonises with the tradition
that originally Delos, like its neighbour Tenos, was a possession of
Poseidon (Strabo, 37, Aeneid, iii. 74). But now comes an inexplicably
barren tale which seems chiefly to exist in order to account for certain
names of Delos, and which most effectually hides any traces which may
be nvolved in it of genuine popular myth-making. A sister of Leto,
Asteria, in order to escape from the love of Zeus, is changed into a quail
and finally into Ortygia or quail island. Asteria was at the beginning a
vin DELOS A WANDERING ISLAND 359
were born the holy Cyclades, motionless till then, danced
for very joy around Delos, while the holy island itself
always a wanderer over seas till then was made to stand
still. " For in the foretime it was a wanderer," says Pindar, 1
" at the mercy of every dashing wave and of the whirling
winds ; but the daughter of Coeus set foot upon it wild
with shooting pains the forerunners of her deliverance ; then
it was that on earth s stablished foundations four upright
pillars arose, and upon their capitals columns that were
footed in adamant held firmly aloft the rock 2 where she
first in her travail had sight of her blessed progeny."
Meanwhile the islands centered round about Delos, the
chosen Cyclades, 3 went through their dance, and swans
from Asia went singing seven times around the holy island,
and then the babes were born. In memory of these joyous
circlings of the swans before his birth, Apollo afterwards
set seven strings upon his lyre. 4 Because, moreover,
Leto had respite from travail-pangs on the seventh day of
the month, that day was made holy. 5
star in the sky, and her two names were merged with herself in the floating
island. When Apollo and Artemis were finally born, their birth-place
Asteria-Ortygia became Delos for insufficient reasons more than sufficiently
dwelt upon by Callimachus in his Hymn to Delos.
1 Quoted by Strabo, p. 485.
2 Virgil, Aeneid, iii. 73 ff. , gives an alternative account of the early
career of Delos which amounts to much the same as Pindar s, only in place
of pillars chains fasten the island. Its anchors are Myconos and Gyaros.
In common with Myconos the two sacred isles Delos and Rhenea are of
granite. Hence the notion that in the record (i) of Delos as an island not
originally fixed in its place like others, but left a wanderer (Callimachus
Hymn to Delos, 30 ff. and 92 f.), (2) of Delos as being hidden under water
till Zeus or Poseidon drew it out (see Etym. Mag., s. v. A^Xoj), we have
a mythological account of the comparatively recent and volcanic origin of
Delos. If this way of treating the myth could only be deemed reasonable
it would have a certain value for geologists which it now entirely lacks.
3 See Appendix IX. on the Cyclades.
4 Callim. Hymn to Delos, 300 and ff.
5 Hesiod, \Vorks and Days, 770 and f.
360 APOLLO AT DELOS vin
In thinking of Delos, the first importance was given by
religious Greeks to a feeling that the birth of Apollo and
Artemis made the island especially pure, and in order to
preserve that quality without stain it was in time enacted
by a gradual process of evolution in the idea of what purity
required (somewhat accelerated and much discredited by
political circumstances) that there should be no birth, no
death, and no burial upon the holy isle. 1 Because Leto
and her children had communicated to Delos by contact
the inherent virtues indwelling in them, it was meet that all
occasions of contamination from mortals at the supreme
physical moments of birth and death should be removed. 2
Delos itself was in the end so over-jealously guarded from
the contaminations of birth and death, that the dying had
to be moved across the sheltered narrows to Rhenea before
they quite gave up the ghost, and anticipated births were at
last so regulated as to take place also upon that adjacent
island. These regulations for defence against contamina-
1 There was, furthermore, a curious provision that no dogs be allowed
on Delos (Strabo, 486).
2 A certain help in gaining the Greek point of view may be derived
from the fourth chapter of Mr. Frazer s Golden Bough, where many curious
customs really far removed from the Greeks are described. In some of
these the view of supreme physical moments here suggested may be found.
The notion that there is a taint derived from the presence of death has
not survived with any religious sanction, though the Old Testament is full
of it. Perhaps though a touch of it has lingered to give special point to
Me"rime"e s saying that he came near dying while calling at the house of a
person with whom he was not sufficiently intimate to justify his taking
that liberty. The taint derived from proximity to a birth, however, was
quite as much provided against by the priests of the medieval church
as by those of Apollo and Aesculapius. That the same view was enter
tained under the Jewish dispensation is noted in our own Milton s touching
lines,
Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, . . .
Mine, as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the old law did save."
vin THE CONSECRATION OF RHENEA 361
tion seem to have passed from Uelos to the Epidaurian
shrine and precinct of the Apolline god Aesculapius. In
imperial times certainly there was constructed outside of
the Epidaurian precinct a place of refuge called the house
of birth and of death.
But before Rhenea could become a sort of second
Delos, and take upon itself contaminations for the sake of
leaving the Holy Island pure, an ideal consecration was
required. In the record of this may be found another and
real though not logical proof that in Delos resided a virtue
of inherent purity, greater perhaps than that attributed by the
faithful to the shrines of most powerful saints. The record
in question is of a gift that Polycrates made to Delian Apollo. 1
Polycrates, among his many proverbial strokes of good luck,
hit upon the idea of dedicating to Apollo at Delos the
island of Rhenea which he had conquered. He decided to
offer the island in just the same way that he would have
chosen for offering a statue or a piece of furniture to the
temple. How then was his island, a small island it was, to
be sure, but still at least four times the size of Delos, how
was Rhenea to be offered up at the shrine of Apollo ?
The universally prevalent religious conception of Delos as
the purest of all spots helped him to the way. He stretched
across the not very deep roadstead between Rhenea and
Delos cables or chains of iron, and brought about through
the 500 yards of water that intervened a contact of the
impure with the pure. Thus the greater was contained by
the less, thus the island now called Megale Dili, Great
Delos, was made for certain purposes a part of its smaller
neighbour. It was a very fortunate stroke for Polycrates,
since the world was amazed and delighted, and at the same
1 Thuc. iii. 104.
362 APOLLO AT DELOS vin
time was informed that the new master of the island of
Samos had made himself the best friend of Apollo at
Delos.
The most spiritual bond, however, that ever attached
a whole community to the distant shrine of a god was
that which bound Athens to Delos, during the absence
of the holy ship on its yearly visit to the island. Dur
ing that month all Athens was consecrate to Apollo,
and thus a month was added to the life of Socrates.
No death could be inflicted by the state while it was in
official congress with the Holy Island, for this would blot,
through indirect contact, the perfect purity of Apollo s
home. 1
The early history of Delos is a chapter of lustrations and
purifications. Pisistratus of Athens devoted his efforts in
the archipelago to a removal of all tombs that were within
sight of Apollo s temple. 2 A century later, in 426 B.C., the
Athenians, self-governed at last and not ruled by any tyrant,
renewed and improved upon the policy of Pisistratus. In
this year they began to take possession of Delos for
avowedly religious but also for commercial reasons, and
instituted the great Delian festival called the Delia. At
this time all mortal remains were dug up and removed from
Delos. 3 Thus even at Delos it was only gradually that the
stringent regulations of ceremonial purity were developed,
and generations of increasing stringency were required before
the taint of births and deaths was secluded from Delos and
1 A similar sanctity by spiritual contact is constantly implied in the
terms in which the Cyclades are spoken of by various authors. In return
for this their homage glorified Delos. As Strabo says, 485 : ^vdo^ov 5
eTToi-rjaav avr^v cu Trepiot/ctSes vTjffoi /caXoi^ei/ai Ki&lt;/cAd5es, Kara ri^ty
Tre/ATTOucrai rnj.oala dewpovs re /cat Ovffias, /cat %o/30i)s irapdtvwv, Travrjyupeis
re tv aurrj crvvayovffai /j.eyd\as.
2 Thuc. iii. 104. 3 Ibid.
vin THE EXILE OF THE DELIANS 363
confined to Rhenea. Moreover the harsh rules set up by
Athens for her own purposes were a real violation of the
spirit of Apolline religion. 1 The climax was reached four
years after this second purification of Delos by Athens. In
422 B.C. the Athenians declared that all the Delians were a
source of contamination to the island, and thus, having
previously removed the dead, they now drove out the
living. 2
The conduct of Athens at Delos from 426-422 B.C. did
not deceive religious Greeks, who saw in it a determination
on her part to suffer no commercial rivalry, and resented
the outrage offered by the Athenians elsewhere to a
sanctuary of Delian Apollo. 3 Apollo himself from his
Delphian oracle interfered and secured the restoration of
the Delians after a most unhappy period of exile. 4 An echo
of the public interest taken by religious Greece in Delos
and the Delians, an interest which would resent their un
merited wrongs, is found in the Hecuba, which was brought
out between 426 B.C. the date of the establishment of the
Delia, and 422 B.C. the date of the expulsion by Athens of
the Delians from Delos. The captive Trojan maidens thus
sing of Delos and the Delians :
" Where the first of palms that grew, and the laurel-tree
shot upward holy branches of tender green to give comfort
to blessed Leto in her travail-pangs for Zeus. With Delian
maids shall I there join in praise of the fillet and bow of
heavenly Artemis ? " 5
1 Sec M. Homolle s article " Delia" in Daremberg and Saglio.
- Thuc. v. i.
3 At Delium in Boeotia (Thuc. iv. 89-100). After the battle in 424, the
Boeotians organised a Delian festival at Delium. This was a protest
against the policy of Athens at Delos.
4 Thuc. v. 32.
5 Hecuba, 457 ff. ; and cf. I ph. Taur. 1089-1105, quoted above.
364 APOLLO AT DELOS vm
Great as was the interest of Euripides in the Delians and
their traditional observances, he yielded to none in a sense
that Delos must be perfectly pure. This abundantly
appears in the Ion, where Creiisa cries out in the temple at
Delphi, making appeal from injustice to the holiness of
Delos. She thinks that Delphian Apollo has grievously
wronged her, and believes momentarily that he has no pur
pose of reparation : therefore she cries aloud against him.
But even under these circumstances the genuine piety of
her heart did not escape the poet. What more true and
more touching proof of it can be found indeed than the
closing words of Creiisa, whereby the harshness and horror
of the tale she has just told of Apollo s wrongdoing are made
but another means of proclaiming the beauty of holiness that
guards his sacred island ?
"Delos abhors thee, she cries; even the laurel-shoot
growing close to the palm-tree of delicate leafage, where in
the pangs of her holy travail Leto brought thee to birth for
Zeus." l
This amounts very nearly to a worship of the island
itself, and certainly Euripides, by a magnificently religious
exaggeration, has here gone farther even than the celebrated
apostrophe of Delos by Pindar, who addressed the island
as follows :
"Hail! thou that wert stablished by a god, thy upspringing
was most longed for of the children of bright-vestured Leto !
Moveless miracle of all the breadth of earth, Delos named
by mortals, and by the blessed gods called the far-gleaming
star of darkling earth."
The natural beauty which flashes from Delos in these
lines of Pindar is a glittering loveliness shared with her by
1 Ion, 919 and ff.
N
vin ARCHILOCHVS THE POET OF THE AEGEAN 365
all the holy Cyclades ; and like the holiness which brought
worshippers of yore, it is a garment bestowed by the coming
of the sun god. Untouched of sunlight Delos and Rhenea
with all the twelve that circle round them, white Paros and
fertile Naxos, rugged Myconos and Tenos with rocky Syros
all of them, untouched of sunlight, seem desolate and
drear ; but let Apollo touch them with the arrows of his day,
and they are then like flashing prisms that he has set upon
the sea, or blossom-like they glisten white on blue, and the
poet .of to-day still marvels to see them there
Lily on lily that o erlace the sea.
The sea and the sunlight of his Aegean home entered
long since into the heart of the ancient Aegean poet Archi-
lochus and made him, even more than Pindar, capable of
worthily setting forth the strong and beautifully awful majesty
of Delian Apollo. Archilochus chose rather for his theme,
and for his native land, the whole breadth of the Aegean
than the pent-up Paros where he came to birth.
" Away with Paros, her figs and fishy life ! " 1 he cries, and
launches his barque upon the sparkling sea, singing,
Wood makes the trough to knead my bread withal,
Wood makes the cask to keep Ismarian wine,
Wood makes the deck where drinking I recline. 2
Although the poetry of great Archilochus has disappeared
with the exception of a few lines, in some of those few that
remain we may read of the presence in his heart of the
glorious Delian sun -god Apollo. The very flame of swift
power in the death -dealing sun, pouring ceaselessly upon
the fervid flanks of Delian Cynthus, or making the while
1 Bcrgk, Frag. 51. 2 Ib nL 3.
366 APOLLO AT DELOS vm
sea-walls of Paros glow again with intolerable heat, was felt
by Archilochus, when indignant he cries :
Sirius will flash, I hope, most fiercely out,
And utterly consume them. 1
There were moments in the life of this man, the poet of the
whole Archipelago, and more especially of that greater
Delos formed by all the Cyclades, moments, I say, there
were in this poet s life when the intensity of his scorn swept
him away as completely as if he had been caught in the
whirl of the tides of his native seas. At such times he
would look in wrathful and untolerating expectation towards
the Holy Isle of Delos and thence invoke Apollo, the dealer
of sudden death :
Apollo, take the guilty ones away,
Unmask them, Lord, and slay as thou canst slay. 2
For a moment the largeness of such noble scorn trans
figures Archilochus ; the inspiration of deep utterance
makes him for one instant like the god whose power he
invokes, but it lasts but the space of a moment. Though
our poet s anger resembles that of high Apollo, he is other
wise not like him. Archilochus never dreamt even of that
chivalrous regard for womankind which belonged to the
ideal godhead of Apollo.
Let us now examine first this great quality, which some
times tempts one to call Apollo a King Arthur of the
Greeks.
Does Apollo the giver of swift and painless death slay
women as well as men ? Here is one test of his chivalry.
Homer may be called in for the first witness, he knew
1 Bergk, Frag. 61. 2 Ibid. 27
vin APOLLO A KING ARTHUR OF THE CREEKS 367
Apollo first. In describing Syrie, commonly identified with
Syros one of the twelve Cyclades, Homer says :
When it cometh to pass that men grow old in that country,
The god of the silver bow, Apollo, and Artemis with him
Suddenly comes upon them and slays with shafts that are
gentle. 1
Again Apollo and Artemis come together and avenge upon
Niobe and her children the blasphemous outrage uttered
against their dear mother Leto. The two, brother and
sister, act in concert ; Apollo s shafts strike down the sons
of Niobe, her daughters are slain by the unerring aim of
Artemis.
Sometimes, we hear, these twin gods dealt destruction
by command of the other gods. Sometimes Artemis acts
alone, as in the case so bitterly complained of by Calypso
when,
Artemis dread, the golden-throned, on the island Ortygia, 2
Suddenly came upon him 3 and slew with her shafts that are
gentle. 4
Apollo s anger against the guilt of his love Coronis, soon
to be mother of the blameless Aesculapius, could not make
him raise his hands against her, she died, " slain," says
Pindar, " by golden shafts of Artemis shot forth. She went
from her chamber down to Hades house through con
trivance of Apollo." 5 Thus it appears that Apollo and
Artemis are appointed to bring a sudden death, whether
painless and peaceful as to those who have lived right
eously through a long life or a destruction whirled on the
guilty like a flash from the death-dealing anger of heaven.
1 Odyssey, xv. 409 and ff. 2 Delos.
3 Orion the lover of the Dawn. 4 Odyssey, v. 123 and ff.
5 Pyth. , iii. 8 and ff.
368 APOLLO AT DELOS vm
In any case Apollo gives no death to womankind, in all
such cases his sister Artemis intervenes.
Other Greek divinities are not, like Apollo, incapable of
bringing death to women. Furthermore, Apollo s conduct
towards his various loves shows often in other ways the
true aspect of chivalry. The love of Apollo and Daphne,
the story of Marpessa s marriage, both represent Apollo the
lover submitting to be scorned and rejected with no thought
of revenge, but rather (in Daphne s case at least) with a
persistency in loving which foreshadows the more complete
ideal of devoted chivalry. As a lover Apollo is not angered
by refusal, and entire rejection does not end his suit.
Though Daphne eluded him utterly, he takes to be his own
the laurel tree, which was peculiarly hers, since it was she.
This laurel became one of the symbols of purification and
purity in the Apolline ritual. It is even possible that the
whole myth of the love of Apollo for Daphne sprang up as
a link to join a form of native and immemorial tree-worship
to the later and higher service of Apollo. That a myth of
this kind, chiefly intended as a connecting-link, should come,
by the way, to present pictorially so high-minded a mood of
unsensual and unselfish love is most significant. A similar
link between the Thracian Dionysus and the native Icarian
tree-worship was that of the suicide of Erigone and the
mania for self-destruction that came upon all the maidens
of Icaria. These two episodes embody the popular ap
praisal, so to speak, of Dionysus and Apollo. Dionysus
was wrapped in a mystery of cruel horror, he drove men to
nameless destruction, whereas Apollo was the noble-minded
god, shining before men as a beacon of purity, and support
ing their moral weakness by his own sublime and undying
strength.
vni APOLLO AND CYRENE 369
Zeus in his loves forms a great contrast to the unsensual
Apollo. Zeus transforms himself into this animal or that
for more certain and secret pursuit. These animals are an
incarnation, as it were, of the carnal impulse in the god.
Such a mark of sensuality is not set upon the love-pursuit
of Apollo. Moreover Apollo is represented as accepting
the duties along with the privileges of a lover. 1 The re
sponsibilities of fatherhood, so little and so ineffectually
heeded by Zeus, come home in all their fulness to Apollo.
Many stories present these high aspects of Apollo s
commerce with men. For one of them, his appreciation
of those charms which elude perception by mere sense,
Pindar s account of the loves of Apollo and Cyrene is
perhaps the most adequate. 2 Wandering in the woods,
Apollo comes of a sudden upon Cyrene engaged in a hand
to hand struggle with a lion. The maiden is alone, but
unafraid. The god calls out straightway to Chiron, that
gentlest and wisest of all centaurs : " Leave thy dread cave,
come forth and marvel at this great prowess; how with
mind undaunted the girl maintains her struggle, showing a
spirit that towers above trials, a stedfast soul unstormed by
fear. What mortal begat her? Plucked from what tribe
doth she dwell in the hidden nooks of the shadow-flinging
hills ? " Truly Apollo s bearing is chivalrous and the nobility
of passion can no farther go.
In the answer made by Chiron to Apollo s questions
about Cyrene, the god is spoken of as one for whom it is
unlawful to have part in a lie, 3 and this recalls another
place where Pindar says that Apollo sets not his hand to
falsehood, 4 and also various passages where Plato maintains
1 See the Ion of Euripides, passim. 2 Pyth. ix.
:i Ibid. 42. 4 Pyth. iii. 9, \J/v8tuv oi x ^Tr
2 B
370 APOLLO AT DELOS vin
the unerring and unswerving truthfulness of the god. 1
Truthfulness is also among the cardinal virtues of the
Knights of the Round Table, and thus again is the chivalry
of Apollo made manifest. Apollo was in fact bound not
to come near to falsehood by a law, a Thesmos. This law
was an obligation, self-imposed no doubt, but yet stronger
than any other impulse in the god, and therefore stronger
than himself. He would not speak untruth because he
could not, and he could not because he would not. This
is a standard which suffers nothing by comparison with the
medieval point of honour.
Further consideration of Apollo as the infallible speaker
of truth by his oracles would lead rather to his Delphian
than his Delian shrine, for the oracle at Delos never had
great influence until Alexandrine times 2 when oracles began
already to be neglected. Apollo, we are told, gave oracles
at Delos in the summer season, but not during the winter.
Then he gave answers at Patara in Lycia. According to
still another account Apollo absented himself during the
winter months to sojourn among the Hyperboreans in the
uttermost parts of the earth. Kindred stories about regular
absences of the god from Delphi are told and have been
dealt with in the opening chapter of this book. Dismissing
these questions without going more deeply into them, we
may briefly add that the two great Apolline principles were
represented by his two great shrines at Delphi and Delos.
Apollo was everywhere the god of purity and truth, but his
Delian worshippers had first in their minds his purity, while
men flocked to Delphi that before all things else they might
hear truth. This is broadly true of Apollo, and it also
/. 21 B, Rep. ii. 382 E and 383 B.
Callimachus, Hymn to Delos, vv. 1-5 ; Virg. Aen. iii. 85-101.
vin SELF-DISCIPLINE OF APOLLO 371
seems true to say that in many local stories, notably in
those of Delphi, the god is represented as having attained
the purity of his heart and the clearness of his infallible
mind by a process of trial, a period of tribulation, which so
regenerated him that he was fitted to be the moral pro
tagonist of Olympus. 1 There was a commemoration at
Delphi of Apollo s self-purification after he slew the dread
serpent Pytho. Apollo was condemned in another story to
serve a mortal for nine years in expiation of his slaying
the Cyclops. These are Apollo s victories over himself,
his acts of submission to that higher and self-imposed thes-
mos, which among other things forbade him as Pindar s
Chiron says from touching falsehood. Through the moral
superiority to other ideal figures in Greek mythology thus
achieved, Apollo was enabled to possess for his own both
Delphi and Delos, where other gods were in possession
when he came. For instance, Delos apparently belonged
to Poseidon before it came to Apollo, and the same seems
true of Delphi. Actual record of the superiority of
strenuous and self- disciplining Apollo is preserved, first
by the great Delphian motto on his temple " Know thyself,"
and secondly, by legends of Apollo s superiority in various
strenuous ways to other gods. The contest between him
and Heracles for the tripod ended in a compromise where
Apollo s superiority is plainly shown. M. Ronchaud 2 has
indeed most admirably said that " Apollo, when he has
dealings with other divinities, always shows a certain moral
1 See chapter iv. of C. F. Keary s Outlines of Primitive Belief. Mr.
Keary says, p. 191 : " The history of the development of Apollo s character,
then, is the gradual exaltation of his nature to suit the growing needs of
men. In the Iliad, though Zeus is the most mighty of the two, Apollo s
is certainly the more majestic figure."
2 Article " Apollo," in Daremberg and Saglio.
372 APOLLO AT DELOS vm
superiority. His standard is higher than theirs. Poseidon
was his fellow-labourer in the building of the walls of Troy,
but the possession of Delphi and its oracle, originally shared
by Poseidon with Earth, passed into Apollo s hands, and
Poseidon was dispossessed. Apollo s superiority shows
itself also in the Homeric record of his strife with Hermes.
He is the rival of Hermes in inventing the lyre, and wins
the day over him in a race at Olympia. Ares himself cannot
withstand Apollo at boxing, and as for the insolent Phorbas,
Apollo punishes him with death. Apollo taught Heracles
the use of the bow^and in various points the legends of
Heracles run parallel to those of Apollo. But Apollo
stands far above Heracles, and looks down from the heights
of his divine perfection."
A further insight into the nature of the purifier purified,
of Delian Apollo and his services at Delos, will be gained
by looking into the various festivals celebrated on the
island at various periods. The festival in honour of Apollo s
birthday was like the flower festivals of Dionysus in the
spring. Upon the sixth of the month Thargelion began
this Apolline Christmas season, of which a glorified record
is preserved in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo. This
may be summarised as follows :
Apollo has many sanctuaries, "thick -growing forests,"
" high points of far outlook," 1 " high-standing headlands,"-
Delos, though, is his best beloved shrine.
There lonians, trailing long robes, are wont to assemble.
With them they bring the wives they wedded, and children
are with them.
They meanwhile, on combats of boxing, singing, and dances,
1 Such is the temple of Apollo at Bassae.
vin THE IONIANS AT DELOS 373
Always intent, whenever the contest begins, are contented,
Seeming predestined to live thus ageless for ever and
deathless.
The joy of the occasion lent to all that partook of it a
glamour of immortality ; the stranger standing by thinks he
is seeing the " Charm of the World," and rejoices exceed
ingly at sight of "goodly men and women with beauteous
girdles," of swift ships and abundance of treasures. Finally,
as a climax to his description of the festal joy, the bard
exclaims in wondering delight :
Look ! the daughters of Delos, handmaidens of him the far-
darter,
Singing begin, first of all with hymns in praise of Apollo,
Of Leto next they sing, and of Artemis shooting her arrows.
Heroes of old they praise, and the glories of men and of
women.
The tribes of mankind are enchanted with these songs
wherein
All men s manner of speech, the Castanet s rhythm and
motion,
Well they counterfeit all, so that each would feel sure he
had spoken,
Spoken himself, so deftly devised are their songs and so
sweetly.
This is the earliest record of the Ionian festival in honour
of Delian Apollo, and after reading this, it becomes difficult
to believe that Apollo was of purely Dorian origin, as some
have maintained. 1
A later testimony to this earliest festival of Apollo at
1 As this Homeric Hymn throws a welcome light upon Delos, it is satis
factory to note, before turning away from it, that inscriptions found on the
island have thrown light upon the questioned authenticity of its second
part. See the interesting article by Gabriel Daures on " Excavations at
374 APOLLO AT DELOS vm
Delos is found in Thucydides (iii. 104) above referred to.
From him we learn that it was a yearly celebration, and
did not occur every fourth year like the festival called the
Delia, founded at Delos by Athens in 426 B.C.
In fact the successful attempt begun in that year by the
Athenian democracy to supplant the local traditions of
Delos by closely allied Athenian ones, and the remodelling
of the ancient Apollonian festival, has given rise to much
confusion both in mythology and ritual. It would be useless
to attempt now a disentanglement of such confusion. It is
enough to bear in mind what M. Homolle has so clearly
pointed out, that (i) the earliest festivals described in the
Homeric Hymn were quite distinct both from (2) the
Athenian Delia which supplanted them, and also from (3)
the festival called the Apollonia, which was an attempt to
revive something like them, made so late in the day that
all the traditions that surrounded the Homeric bard had
died away. The Apollonia were celebrated during the
century and a half of independence enjoyed by Delos. The
last stage of Delian merry-making begins in 166 B.C., a year
memorable for the final reappearance at Delos, under Roman
auspices, of Athenian power. Abundant testimony from the
end of the second century B.C. tells of the second revival of
the Delia l in those latter days. The celebration was only
in part religious and, as had been the case with every
festival ever celebrated at Delos, there was also a sort of
Delos," Nouvelle Revue, Sept. 1880. M. Homolle found an inscription
which proves that the last half of the hymn was called Homeric in the
third century B.C., not only popularly but by a competently qualified
judge.
1 Thus, to summarise, the Delia were founded in 426 B.C., suspended
in Lysander s day after he took Athens, until 386 B.C. With the second
sea-supremacy of Athens they were revived and lasted until 330 B.C. ,
then came the revival in 166 B.C.
vin VICISSITUDES OF DELIAN FESTIVALS 375
fair. 1 But apparently the commercial spirit finally got the
upper hand in these latest days ; and Delos, at the time when
Menophanes, a lieutenant of Mithridates, brought final
destruction upon it, was largely in the hands of enterprising
Phoenicians, and Jews who knew not Apollo. Delos
became more famous as the greatest slave market in
the world than as the birth - place of Leto s twin chil
dren. Perhaps it was some sense of the incongruity of
this which made the praises of Delos so irksome a theme
to Virgil.
But even in Virgil s day the eye of faith could see much
that was beautiful and inspiring. All the shrines at Delos
had been deserted for years before Ovid wrote his descrip
tion of Candida Delos crowded with gifts from kings and
peopled everywhere with votive statues. But still the
splendour of Athenian festivals there celebrated irradiated
the memory of what Delos had been. And religious-minded
and imaginative men remembered more vividly the glories
of the remoter past when the sordid and commercial thing
that Delos had become was swept away. Hence, if we try
to gain some fragmentary knowledge of the manner of
Athenian celebrations at Delos, we shall but do (as far as
may be) what those who knew the island in the day of her
decay and destruction were prone to do.
The celebration was in mid-spring, before May was one
week old, lasting at least two days, the first was Apollo s
birthday, the second was that of Artemis. For this festival 2
1 Tenos has reproduced in modern Christian times many of the features
of ancient festivals at Delos. Twice a year the Evangelistria draws crowds
who come to pray, and many of whom stay to buy and sell. These
Tenian festivals were begun towards the end of the first quarter of this
century.
2 I am speaking of the quadrennial festival ; there were minor celebra
tions on the "off years."
376 APOLLO AT DELOS vin
extensive preparations were made at Athens. Choruses
were trained, 1 deputations were chosen and qualified,
victims were bought and put into a good condition for
sacrifice, the sacred Delian ship was made in every way
seaworthy, and the signs of heaven were consulted for a
favourable time of departure.
The Delian deputation or Theory whose members were
called by the special name of Deliastae must not be
confused with the singing choruses of youths and maidens
that accompanied them. The whole number of celebrants
who constituted the Athenian contribution to the quad
rennial festivities at Delos would therefore be very large.
When Callias, the son of Hipponicus, was the head of the
deputation, its numbers were 118. Nicias went with 103.
This whole array, collectively named the Delias, had to
sail from the Piraeus, and go out past Sunium into the
open sea where began the Cyclades. As Attic Sunium
disappeared in the distance, they passed Ceos, Cythnos,
Seriphos, and Syros on the right, and on the left Andros
and Tenos. When they came in sight of Myconos to the
far east, they stopped short of it and ran into the narrow
and sheltered channel between Delos and Rhenea the gift
of Polycrates to Apollo. In the beautiful days of late April
and early May they would have a glimpse from afar of Naxos 2
and Paros in the southern group of the holy Cyclades.
1 The choruses from Athens were renowned for beauty and for artistic
perfections, Xen. Mem. III. iii. 12. The Deliastae a committee in
special charge of the representation of Athens at the Delian festival were
chosen from the Eumolpidae and the Kerykes, families identified with the
worship at Eleusis. They had to see that the deputation took its departure
as soon as favouring signs appeared in the heavens. The Deliastae were
required to have passed a year of probation, say in the Marathonian
Delion. For references and further details see M. Homolle s article
" Delia" in Daremberg and Saglio.
2 For views of Naxos, see Appendix XI. i. 84-86.
vin FROM ATHENS TO DELOS 377
Without unfavourable winds the journey could be made
in four days, although to be sure the ship dedicated to
Apollo s service was none of the newest or swiftest. This
Uelian boat was called the Theoris, and was a small old
fangled craft, with thirty oars, a triaconter, kept always in
the very best repair. The very faithful tried to believe it
was the identical boat upon which Theseus set sail for
Crete, vowing to found a festival for Apollo, 1 , if victory
crowned his expedition. Evidently other boats were
needed, for, apart from the five score persons, more or less,
who had to find ship room, enough victims for a hecatomb
had to be transported to Delos. 2 Often, too, the high-born
Athenians who wished their horses to compete in the races
at the Delian festival 3 must have required additional trans
port. For Delos still more than Ithaca is and always was
" a place for goats " rather than horses. In Delos there
were no wide courses, and no meadow save the one around
the sacred lake. 4 When the fleet was ready in the harbour
and the ministrant who made sacrifice daily at the altar of
Apollo gave word that a favouring flash of lightning
indicated the right moment for weighing anchor, a wreath
was set upon the prow of the sacred Theoris and the
pilgrims sailed away with appropriate ceremonies and the
singing of songs, which were sung all the way to Delos. 5
1 Plutarch, Theseus, 23, and cf. Pausanias, VIII. xlviii. 3.
2 The accounts for 377-374, M. Homolle says, cover a purchase ot 109
animals for sacrifice.
3 The Athenians of wealth and position took all this trouble, at the
time the Delia were first founded, the more readily if the Peloponnesian
managers of the Olympic games, being Spartan sympathisers, are sup
posed to have made participation in the races at Olympia more or less
disagreeable for them.
4 See Appendix XI. i. 71, 72.
5 M. Homolle quotes the words aSeis uxrTrep eis A 77X01 TrX/ajy, Parocw-
iogr. (Gottingen), p. 42.
378 APOLLO A T DELOS vm
Around the sacred boats sent by the state swarmed many
others carrying pilgrims on their own account, and some
of them freighted with merchandise. The same thing
happens to-day, mutatis mutandis^ when the faithful sail
to Tenos for the festival and fair of the Holy Evangel-
istria.
Perhaps the most memorably magnificent of all these
sacred embassies to Delos was that already mentioned de
spatched from Athens shortly after the conclusion of the
Peace of Nicias. It may be remembered that just before
this time the repentant Athenians had rescinded their
harsh decree of banishment, and thus the Delians had
but recently returned from exile. This sacred embassy
was headed by Nicias, an Athenian whose rather mechani
cal piety coupled with misfortunes bravely borne made
his career most touching, and all but nobly tragic. In
company of a number of boats bearing the youthful
chorus, and of other craft of the heavier kind for freight,
the Theoris brought up not, as in former years, in Delos
proper, but across the way on Rhenea. This landing
must have been on the eve of the great Delian festival.
All night long rumblings and voices were borne over
the waters to the listening Delians. In the morning a
gorgeous pontoon bridge connected Rhenea with the Holy
Island. Across it came the procession and Nicias, all in
festal array, and wearing golden crowns. After the bridge
was crossed they passed northward singing all the way to
where in later years the roadway was hemmed in by the
portico of Philip (the Fifth of Macedonia), and they entered
the precinct by a Ceremonial Gate (the southward gate
built by the Athenians). After this, they moved northward
still, passing to the westward of the great temple of Apollo,
vin THE PROCESSION OF NICIAS 379
and also of the smaller temple of Leto by its side. The
processional way here as at Eleusis was lined on either side
with various statues and monuments, and these were more
numerous as the neighbourhood of the temple was reached.
After joining the sacred way that led inward from the larger
North Propylaea, Nicias came to the ancient temple of
Artemis or, as some think of the Seven Gods. 1 Here were
deposited the laurel crowns of gold periodically sent to
Apollo of Delos from Athens during Athenian supremacy.
After the procession had gone the rounds prescribed,
visiting shrines and temples, crowning the ancient wooden
statue of Aphrodite left at Delos by Ariadne, 2 who had it
from Daedalus, its fashioner, the second stage of the cele
bration was reached, the sacrifice. 3 The hundred kine
decked for the offering and with their horns gilded were
sacrificed on all the altars save one alone the bloodless
altar of Apollo, the father of the Ionian race. There only
first-fruits were offered, and no doubt thither the gifts of the
mysterious Hyperboreans 4 found their way. Then came
perhaps certain ceremonies of dedication and purification,
1 The uncertainty about this temple, the existence and approximate
position of which are known through inscriptions, is due to subsequent
building, which in the Middle Ages swept all its foundation marks from the
face of the rock. Here stood perhaps the only Christian building of any
pretensions that Delos has ever possessed some sort of a chapel built by
the Knights Hospitallers, which had in turn almost completely disappeared
when excavations began in earnest under M. Homolle. He found here
one of the most remarkable statues of antiquity representing, let us say,
Artemis. Take, if you will, a very tall tombstone and round off its angles
and corners till its form is nearly cylindrical. Divide the result into three
parts, not equal, but nearly so, one for the legs, one for the body, one for
the head. Something should be done, no matter what, about the arms.
Then your Delian statue of Artemis, not beautiful, but most ancient, is
complete. Brunn has published it in his Denkmiiler.
2 Pausan. IX. xl. 3 and 4 ; Callimach. Hymn to Delos, 308 ff.
3 Plutarch, Nicias, 3.
4 Mannhardt has an ingenious theory that they were Thracians or
Macedonians.
380 APOLLO AT DELOS vin
after which the games began contests of physical strength
and skill, horse racing, and musical competition. Every
thing which Athens could do was done here in Apollo s
honour, with all the more splendour because Athens was
solely responsible for the festival. Nicias saw, no doubt,
the older temple of Apollo, supplanted later on by the one
whose ruins we contemplate to-day. That temple, like its
successor, fronted eastward and therefore away from the
channel and towards Mount Cynthus. Between its back or
western end and the sea stood in the day of Nicias the
colossal statue of Apollo dedicated by the Naxians. This
figure towered up to a height of twenty-four feet, and the
ancient Nicias seems to have been deeply moved by its
god-like proportions. That he might vie with the ancient
Naxian worshippers of Apollo, he gave money before he left
for setting up a colossal palm-tree of bronze by the side of
their colossus. This was done, and the two stood there for
many a year side by side. So close were they, indeed, that
there was a great disaster generations afterwards when a
windstorm swept across from Tenos, where Aeolus himself
was housed on Mount Cycnias. The too blustering Aeolus
visited Apollo s precinct rudely, and caused the brazen
palm-tree to crash down against the statue of Apollo and
overturn it utterly. Such was the unlucky gift given by one
who at the time considered himself no doubt the luckiest of
men.
But the pious Nicias did more than this : he gave ground
to the temple worth 10,000 drachmae. He provided that
the income from this should be spent for celebrating what
sounds very much like a mass for his soul. He stipulated
for a yearly sacrifice and an accompanying entertainment at
which the Delians were to pray for the gods to grant an
vui THE EARLIEST DEL1AN FESTIVAL 381
abundant good fortune to Nicias. The time came only too
soon when Nicias overwhelmed by the incessant agonies
of the most painful and incurable of diseases needed
sorely all these prayers and more. A hopeless invalid, he
died under the most tragical circumstances, slain by decree
of the Syracusan mob, and at Athens his pious name was
execrated.
Such, in outline, was the manner of honouring Apollo
used by the Athenians during the various periods of assured
supremacy when Athenian officers took from the Delians all
control over the concerns of Delian worship. Such was the
Athenian festival called the Delia and first celebrated in
426 B.C.
For the earliest festival we are constrained to fall back
chiefly upon the pleasing picture of the Homeric Hymn to
Delian Apollo. A sufficient account of this has been given
above. There are also some verses of Theognis l more or
less plainly referring to it. Aside from this we only know
a detail here and there about ancient images, and remark
able practices associated with a fabulous and more or
less prehistoric past. There is the story given by Aris-
;, avrbs /j.ev etrvpyiiMTas irb\iv
A\Ka66(f} n^XoTros iraidl
avrbs 5 arparbv vfipurrriv M^
rrjade TrbXevs, iva crot Xaoi i
Kiddpyis yd eparrj daXtrj
T ff
Bergk, 773-779. The last four lines are thus translated by Frere :
So shall thy people each returning spring
Slay fatted hecatombs ; and gladly bring
Fair gifts with chaunted hymns and lively song,
Dances and feasts, and happy shouts among ;
Before thy altar, glorifying thee,
In peace and health, and wealth, cheerful and free.
382 APOLLO A7^ DELOS vm
totle x of Pythagoras visit to Delos, wherein we hear that,
passing others by, he made sacrifice upon the altar of Apollo
Genetor or Patroos, where the shedding of no blood was
tolerated. We cannot know what may have been the
Delian version of the first appearance at Delos of the
ancient wooden image of Aphrodite, 2 because the Athenian
tale has alone survived, making it a gift from Ariadne when
she passed that way with Theseus. That the ante-Athenian
phase of worship was represented by many curious and
clumsy works of most primitive art is abundantly shown by
the seven ancient images discovered by excavation near the
Delian shrine of Apollo. Of the most remarkable of these
mention has been made above. 3 Furthermore it appears
that the mother goddess Leto was represented in her
Delian temple by a wooden idol more grotesquely in
adequate, according to later notions of Greek art, than M.
Homolle s famous Artemis. That the art-critics of later
times had much to say on this score appears from the
following anecdote quoted by Athenaeus 4 from Semus, a
Delian, the loss of whose writings has no doubt deprived us
of much information about Delos and Delian Apollo.
Parmeniscus, "the man who never laughed," consulted
the Boeotian oracle in the dark cave of Trophonius that he
might in some way break the spell. The god gave him
answer hexametrically :
Go to mother at home, honour her with exceeding great
kindness.
1 Ar. Fragm. 447, quoted by Diog. Laertius and lamblichus, who
gives it twice.
2 For the curious outline of Aphrodite s history at Delos, see
Appendix X.
3 See above, note i, p. 379. 4 xiv. 614 B.
vni THE TEMPLE AND IMAGE OF LETO 383
The obedient Parmeniscus sought out his mother,
and amazed her by his unusual attentions. The effect
of all this was apparently to make them both more
hopelessly solemn than ever. Not too many years after
wards, our solemn friend came to Delos, as Aegean
voyagers from west to east always did in those days.
While going the pious rounds on the island Parmeniscus
worshipped in the Letoon or Temple of Leto, next that of
Apollo. Accustomed to the more knowing art in vogue at
his native Metapontum, he was not prepared for the
wooden idol which represented Apollo s mother in this
ancient shrine. Therefore on catching sight of the idol his
devotions were interrupted by uncontrollable fits of laughter.
Leto, Apollo s mother, was the mother whom he had been
commanded to " honour with exceeding great kindness."
Aristotle has quoted in his Ethics l the curious inscription
which met the eyes of worshippers at this temple of Leto,
Righteousness the noblest is ;
Health is better than the best ;
Sweetest though, of all that is,
Is getting what you love.
These words, if connected with Leto, who was "a com
forter from the beginning, the most soothing presence
of all on Olympus," must be expressive of her typical
attitude. Like an indulgent mother with her children,
she chiefly wished that men should have their heart s
desire. Attached to the personality of the goddess of
self- devoted and uncomplaining love, they gain a new
1 Eudemian Ethics, at the beginning of the first book, and also toward
the end of the eighth chapter of the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics.
In the former place it is described as on the Delian Letoon, in the latter
simply as TO A^Xia/cov e7r-ypa/z/ua.
384 APOLLO AT DELOS vin
and a higher meaning, and with Leto s life to point
their moral, are full of a religious significance. Therefore,
it ceases to surprise us to find Aristotle twice quoting
the saying, and also we can better understand why this
same sentiment without substantial variation occurs among
the maxims of Theognis, 1 a poet to whose imagination
the Delian myth of Leto strongly appealed. 2 Let the
motto of the Delian Letoon be an offset to the Delphian
motto, " Know thyself," and temper its too exclusively in
tellectual bias. Here too is the needed contradiction
(always given by the heart to the head) of the other
Delphian motto " Nothing too much." The mother goddess
Leto was given over to unmeasured love, and the affection
which her love inspired in her children Apollo and Artemis
was the best proof that you can never go too far in
love.
As a touching mark of the spirit of grateful affection and
simple trust which could find expression at Apollo s Delian
shrine, the inscribed gift picked up there by Professor
Ulrichs is very precious. It was a cheap leaden quiver,
the gift of shipwrecked sailors who had come near to
starvation, upon which was stamped,
For by these we were rescued from starving.
Such indications as a discovery of this kind gives of the
living spirit of religion working in men s hearts and guiding
their lives are of far more real importance than the record
preserved by Callimachus and others of the building of
an altar by Apollo with materials sought on Mount Cynthus
by his sister Artemis. 3 It was made, we are told, entirely
1 Bergk, 255 and f. - See above, note i, p. 381.
3 Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo, 58-63.
viii THE CYNTHIAN CAVE TEMPLE 385
of horns such as the goddess could gather among the
granite boulders of that eminence, too irreverently designated
by the traveller Tournefort as a colline desagreable. Another
curiosity which attaches itself also to the very earliest forms
of worship used before the dawn of known history is far
away from the town of Delos and the precinct of Apollo
visited by Nicias. For lack of a better name it may be
called the " Cave Temple of Apollo," x though it has been
called the " Grotto of the Sun " by Burnouf and the " Cave
of the Dragon " by another, and more prosaically still by the
unenthusiastic Tournefort " a stone sentry box." This cave-
temple is formed by placing aslant against each other, on the
top of a natural rift in the solid rock, five huge and rough-
hewn granite slabs, two on the north and three on the
south. These two rows rest upon and are crowded against
uneven ledges, rudely fashioned at their lower edges in the
side of the reshaped rift or gully in the Cynthian mountain
side. Their upper edges meet together forming the point
to the most inartificial seeming gable. This appearance
of inartificiality is enhanced by a heap of granite boulders
accumulated on the sides of this rude pediment, which
seems the chance product of nature s workmanship. This
impression is increased by the circumstance that a huge
spot at the back of this cave was probably never roofed
over. Within this strange place, half natural and half
artificial, half cave and half temple, were found by Lebegue, 2
who excavated here for Burnouf early in the seventies,
the feet of what he thinks must have been a fine statue of
Apollo. A curious stone of unshapely form upon which
1 For photographs of this and of various Delian scenes, see Appendix
XI. i. The Cyclades, 71-83.
2 See for more details his Recherche* sur Dtlos, where M. Burnouf s
astronomical points are also presented.
2 C
386 APOLLO AT DELOS vm
these feet rested is talked of by M. Lebegue as undoubtedly
a Baetylus or fetish stone, which according to this view
must have been worshipped here, as a cone was worshipped
in Aphrodite s ancient Paphian precinct. In front of this
sentry-box cave-temple is a terrace built up by means of
a most carefully constructed wall. This, though of very
early workmanship, is of much later date than the cave-
temple itself. Upon this terrace there are traces of some
thing like a tomb and of the charred remains of sacrifice.
Also a stone footing for a very large tripod appears there,
and furthermore, in front of and close to the cave-temple
itself is a row of stone bases ; perhaps these were for small
tripods.
And now, having given as full an account briefly as
might be of the Athenian Delia, and of the more ancient
observances and objects of worship at Delos, what yet
remains to be spoken of is the festival of Apollo as it was
celebrated during the day of Delian independence. When
Athenian interference ceased, the intellectual leadership of
Athens was still felt, and therefore the new Apollonia,
which should have been a revival of the most ancient
observances, were in fact almost the same thing which
the Athenians called the Delia, only no Theoris came
from Athens. The four crowns of gold sent periodically
by Athens while she ruled the festival were sent no more,
and no more votive gifts were made to the god by
Athenians. Delos was no longer beautified by Athenian
architects, such as those whose ruined work is still seen
in the scattered fragments of the most important temple
of Delos. 1 It was to the munificence of a Macedonian,
1 The temple was built about a century after 422 (when Nicias headed
the Athenian Delias), and certainly before 315 B.C. It was of about the
vin LA17ER-DA Y WORSHIPPERS AT DELOS ;S -
Philip the Fifth, that Apollo owed the chief addition to his
splendid buildings made during the era of Delian in
dependence. 1 During these years Delos welcomed as the
votaries of its god not Athenians but merchants from
Eastern Tyre and Sidon, traders from far-off Panticapaeum
on the sea of Azof, and also from the far West The
part in Delian affairs played by the islands round about,
the Cyclades, was also greater than in the day when Athens
ruled supreme. Indeed, the sanctuary became a centre of
Aegean affairs as well as of Aegean religion. It was, as
M. Homolle puts it, not a place for worship only, but
equally a " Recorder s office for the safe-keeping of important
decrees, a sort of treasury department or bank for the
whole Archipelago, and also a central museum for the
islands of the Aegean." 2
Meanwhile festivals under the name of Apollonia took
place with but few alterations from the Athenian programme
at the Delia which they supplanted. There were all sorts
size and dimensions of the Theseum at Athens, it had almost precisely
the same width, but was appreciably shorter. For all manner of archaeo
logical details concerning Delos, it is a pleasure to refer to so charming
a book as that just published by M. Ch. Diehl under the title of Excursions
arth&logiqves en Gr*ce (Paris, 1890). M. Diehl has written just the
entertaining and untechnical sort of book which was required, and has
been extremely happy in what he says about Delos.
1 The porch of Philip, whose massive blocks form one of the most
imposing (and to the hasty sightseer impeding) of the present Delian ruin-
heaps, was built toward the dose of the era of independence, circa iSo
B.C. It is interesting to the student of architecture, because in it is
represented the last and worst extremity of die Dork style. Its columns
have lost the strength and the upbearing swing that belong to those of the
Parthenon, and are transformed into dull and unprofitable posts. See
the instructive account of this whole matter in the Antiq ttifies of Ionia,
Pan IV. 1 88 1, published by the Dilettanti Society.
5 See in the Bulletin de la sotitU de ftyn&M 4* t cst, 1881 (i
trimestre), M. Homolle s lecture on Delos given at Nancy. To under
stand what the temple was, he tells us to combine the Musee de Cluny,
a garde-meuble, a cour de comtes, the Bank of France, the Credit Fonder,
and the Madeleine,
388 APOLLO AT DELOS vni
of foot races, the stadion, the diaulos, the dolichos, the
hoplite race, and there was the pentathlon. Furthermore
torch races were indulged in. It may be difficult to be
sure how many of these features were new, and how many
were simply in continuation of the established Athenian
programme. It may not be possible to know whether the
far-fetched practice of horse-racing introduced by the
Athenians at Delos was maintained by the islanders when
freed from Athenian supervision. Of one thing though we
may be certain : there was abundant dancing. One has
but to visit the Archipelago in carnival time to-day to see
a tolerably good reproduction in modern surroundings
of what has always characterised Aegean merrymakings.
"At Delos," says Lucian, "they could not so much as
make sacrifices without dancing and music as well." After
that he proceeds to describe the measures trod at Delian
merrymakings by especially chosen dancers, and by choirs
of picked youths trained for the delectation of those who
resorted to Apollo s festival. 1
The Greeks of the Archipelago have at all times been
under the spell of the swaying surges of ocean, which was
the background of their home life and home joy. These
islanders live now as of old face to face with the strongest
moods of the great sea, not as in the far recesses of Venetian
lagoons, where the whims of ocean are moderated.
Accordingly, while the graceful swerve of the moderated
1 This spirit of the ancient dances took shape before my eyes in a
band of Syriote peasants whom I saw dancing in front of a village church
on the last day of the carnival. There they were, old men and young
men, maidens and women of maturer years, all merrily dancing and
singing, while the kindly priest whom the refrain of their song was chaffing
looked on contentedly. I recollect particularly the hilarious conduct of a
certain genial and one-eyed villager, Socrates, who danced until he lost
both shoes. For a band of Syriote butchers caught and photographed in
the act of dancing the Caramanian dance, see Appendix XI. i. 64.
vin THE INHERITANCE OF DELOS 389
pulses of the sea has shaped the motions of Venetians,
and lent a swaying outline to the houses men live in at
Venice, in the Archipelago the very quicksilver rhythm
and instant sweep of ocean have passed into the limbs and
hearts of the Greek islanders.
By the mark of good-humoured merriment and kindly
spirit of comradeship we know under its modern disguise
the ancient spirit of Apollo s Delian festivals, which may be
studied with especial advantage when the faithful gather at
Tenos. Three neighbouring islands cast lots as it were for
the rich vestment of sanctity, splendour, and power which
magnified Delos of yore and exalted Delian Apollo. The
period of storm and stress which issued in Greek independ
ence built up at Syra l a great commercial port, instituted
at Tenos the sanctuary of the Evangelistria, 2 and finally
assured to the inhabitants of Myconos the possession of
untenanted Delos and Rhenea.
To this same establishment of Greek independence we
owe the opportunity for studying the worship of Apollo at
Delos unmolested of Turks or other wild beasts. To the
indefatigable labours and the wonderful resources of the first
established school at Athens we owe the abundant material
now open to the student of Delian secular and religious
antiquities. The head and front of the latest and most im
portant discoveries there is M. Theophile Homolle. To
that distinguished scholar we owe the deepest gratitude for
1 Ross tells of a scheme for diverting the trade of Syra to Delos which
was seriously considered, but finally abandoned early in this century.
See for the best account of the growth of Syra, Loukis Laras, by D.
Bike"las (the English translation is by Mr. Gennadius). For pictures of the
modern life of the Cyclades, see Appendix XI. i. 58-70.
2 Agitation for building the church where the miraculous picture is
housed began about 1820, just at the time when the picture itself had
been unearthed in accordance with the dream which persistently visited a
pious nun of Tenos. See Appendix XI. i. 87.
390 APOLLO AT DELOS vin
all the self-denying enthusiasm and undiscouraged perse
verance which have led to his brilliant results. The work
which shall embody and bring to a climax all M. Homolle s
studies is as yet incomplete, but he has already done so
much with his accumulated material that scholars declare
him, and rightly, to be one of the few foremost archaeolo
gists of our day.
APPENDIX IX
THE CYCLADES AND SPORADES
IT is difficult to understand the relation borne by the
various islands of the Aegean to the worship of Apollo at
Delos and to each other, without going into the history of
the two terms Cyclades and Sporades. Neither of these
terms was known in Homer s or Hesiod s day, and of the
two the term Cyclades was not only the first to be used
later on, but was also far more widely known throughout
antiquity. The word Sporades was used apparently, so far
as it came into a general usage, by a sort of analogy to
the use of the word Cyclades. It covers somewhat vaguely
the smaller islands, too insignificant either to be named
singly and stand alone or to be classed among the Cyclades.
In most cases, also, the islands so named are too far away
from Delos to make the term Cyclades possible for them.
The Cyclades were certain illustrious * islands more or less
accurately described as centred around Delos and Rhenea,
and were especially favoured by Apollo, who colonised them
through his son Ion ; 2 the Sporades were small islands to
whose population might be more especially applied the
Euripidean line (Rhesus, 701), v^a-norrjv a-rropdSa KCKT^TCU
piov. They were in no sense a group, but were scattered
broadcast, 3 and each one was so small that any life but an
1 Theocritus, Id. XVII. 90 and f. 2 Euripides, Ion, 1571-1600.
3 Etym. Magn. s.v. SiropaSes vrjffoi: ?} dia rb ff-rropddrjv Kc iaOa.i, T) dirb
TOU cnrapTbv KO.I
392 APPENDIX IX.
unsettled and vagrant one was more or less difficult upon
it. As the islands answering to this description were
chiefly toward the western coast of Asia Minor, there was
a tendency from the moment the term Sporades came into
use to divide the islands, as they are now definitely divided,
into two categories, an eastern one of Sporades, and a
western one which alone could be called a group of
Cyclades. But this was never strictly done in antiquity.
In the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo 1 there still sur
vives a certain confusion noticeable in the Odyssey between
islands and such peninsulas as were in any literal way
almost islands ; therefore it would be vain to expect from
this source any classification of islands. The same imper
fect knowledge of islands, as such, characterises Hesiod.
Undoubtedly the notion of a group of Cyclades around
Delos grew up after the day of the Homeric poems and
hymns, and its use was at first primarily determined by
religious and mythological considerations which, being in a
sense the reverse of geographical, did not require anything
so definite as a catalogue of islands to which the name was
applied. Herodotus may have been more definite and
strictly geographical in his understanding of how the word
applied. He says nothing, however, to encourage the idea,
for he declares that none of the Cyclades were subject to
Darius (v. 30), and means evidently to distinguish them
from islands toward Asia Minor, whose Ionian inhabitants
voluntarily submitted to Persia (i. 169). He had no
general name for these latter, and the only phrase ot
general import which he uses for all the islands in question
is "the islands in the Aegean" (ii. 97), where it may per
haps be claimed that the context suggests chiefly the
Cyclades. Thucydides, on the other hand, evidently
thought it important to be rather more clear in his own
mind about the islands of the Aegean. He speaks (ii. 9)
collectively of the Cyclades and the islands later known as
the Sporades as " the islands inside of the Peloponnesus
1 vv. 30-45.
THE CYCLADES AND SPORADES 393
and Crete." That he had a definite list or group of islands
which he designated as the Cyclades is made very probable
by this same passage, where he uses the phrase, "all the
Cyclades except Melos and Thera." For the islands after
wards called the Sporades, Thucydides had no name whatso
ever, and may so far forth be classed with the early poets and
Herodotus. In the speech of Athena at the close of the
Ion, we have finally the most important mention of the
Cyclades from a religious and mythological point of view.
There they are plainly mentioned as chosen islands, in
whose colonisation and civilisation Apollo Genetor or
Patroos, the patron and father of all lonians, was imme
diately concerned. 1 This Apolline consecration of the
Cyclades is often made prominent in later writers, such as
Callimachus, 2 and there is a trace of it in the general tone
of Herodotus, who distinguishes the Cyclades from com
mon islands by saying that they never became subject to
Darius.
In the days of the organised Roman empire all this was
changed ; it became imperative to have clearly defined
geographical terms, and therefore the religious mystery of
vagueness in the use of the term Cyclades disappeared. A
list of Cyclades was made out, and the newer term Sporades
was applied to the excluded islands, most of them east of
Delos. It must be remembered, however, that none of these
were important and well known. Rhodes, Chios, Samos, and
islands of that ilk, were not counted either as Cyclades or
as Sporades. 3 A learned Spaniard Hyginus, and the accom-
1 Ion, 1583. For the point here made it is not necessary to suppose
that Euripides used the word KVK\ddas as a proper name, though I incline
to think he does, as do also most editors of the play.
2 Hymn to Delos, 300 and ff.
3 The only exception to this would be the name of firapxla v/jcruv
KvKXdSwv, sometimes given to Diocletian s Insularum provincia. This
was one of seven subdivisions of the province Asia, and included 53
islands, among which were Rhodes, Cos, Samos, Chios, Mytilene,
Methymne, Tenedos, Porselene, Andros, Tenos, Naxos, Paros, Siphnos,
Melos, los, Thera, Amorgos, Astypalaea. See Marquardt, Romische
Staatsverwaltung, vol. i. p. 348 ; cf. also note 2, p. 397 below.
394 APPENDIX IX
plished Greek geographer Strabo, both of them, give some
knowledge of the definite and purely geographical meaning
which in the days of Augustus and later attached itself to the
two terms in question. Under the title of " Insulae maxi-
mae," 1 Hyginus begins a long enumeration, where may be
found Sicily, Sardinia, Crete, Cyprus, Rhodes, Euboea,
Tenedos, and Corsica. As his very last item he gives a list
of the Cyclades : " Cyclades insulae sunt novem, id est
Andros, Myconos, Delos, Tenos, Naxos, Seriphus, Gyarus,
Paros, Rhene " (Rhenea). The first point noticeable here
is that the only two islands specifically named by Thucy-
dides as Cyclades, Melos and Thera, are not included in
Hyginus list. Another point against the list is that Delos
and Rhenea appear in it, and thus themselves figure
among their own surroundings. This is enough to dis
credit Hyginus list, even if we had not Strabo s. 2
Strabo has evidently considered the whole question in
all its bearings, for he not only gives his own opinion in
1 Fab. 276. Curiously enough Mauritania, Egypt, and Sicyon are
classed here among insulae. This has something to do with an ambiguity
in the Latin word insula, which applied to buildings and precincts which
were definitely marked off from their surroundings. That there was, how
ever, some real confusion in Hyginus mind is shown by his phrase for
Egypt: " quam Nilus circumlavat. "
z See Theocritus, Id. XVII. 58 and ff., where there is a curious reproduc
tion of the Delian birth legend of Apollo. Ptolemy, whose praises the
poem sings, was born on Cos, which comparatively unwieldy island cried
aloud for joy, and took Ptolemy new-born into her arms, exclaiming in
substance : Blessings on thee, and mayest thou honour me even as
Apollo honoured Delos, and love me as Apollo loved Rhenea." This
shows how inseparable were Delos and Rhenea in the poet s mind, and
makes evident that it was as absurd to count the one as the other among
the Cyclades. Delos and Rhenea were the centre, while the Cyclades
were the circumference. In the Encyclop&dia Britannica, be it said,
only ten Cyclades are named, for two of the twelve there given are Delos
and Rhenea. Now the only two authorities who name Delos and Rhenea
among the islands that surrounded them are Hyginus, whose list is of
nine only, and Stephanus Byzantius, who names twenty-three : twenty-
one beside the two centre islands. It seems useless to attempt thus to
tamper with the authorities at this late day, and by far the best considered
list is undoubtedly Strabo s, from which Delos and Rhenea are excluded.
See Pauly, s.v. "Sporades. "
THE CYC LADES AND SPORADES 395
the matter by naming the Cyclades, but also he corrects
Artemidorus. He enables us, furthermore, to get a fairly
adequate list of the islands which he considered to be
Sporades, and he separates from both Cyclades and
Sporades various important islands and groups of islands
along the coast of Asia Minor.
To begin with, Strabo does not regard the Cyclades
solely as a collective name for a group of islands. They
are, as contrasted with the Sporades, famous islands singled
out from among less noteworthy ones : kv 8e ravrats (islands
near Crete) at re Kv/cAaSes curt Kat at 27ro/)tt8e5, at /xev atai
^Hi/Tip?? at 8 da-rjfjLorepai, p. 474, book x. ; again in speaking
of islands in the Aegean sea a much smaller expanse,
according to his definition of it, than what we call the
Aegean he says tv 8e TO&gt; Atyatw /xaAAoy airny re rj
/cat at TTf.pl avrrjv KvtfAaSes /cat at ravrats
2/7ro&gt;aS9, &gt;v etcrt Kat at Xt ^Oeio a.i Trepl Ttjv KpryTT^v, p. 4^5
ibid. ; and again, a little farther down the same page,
Strabo indicates the religious nature of the bond between
Delos and the Cyclades, not without a confirmation of his
previous implication that the Cyclades are islands of
especial note, and therefore set apart from the others.
These are his words : cvSogov 8 eTrofyo-av avrrjv (Delos) at
s vfjcroi, KaAoryxevat K/uKAaSes, Kara rt/x^v Trc/xTrowai
$ea)/)oi;s re Kat 0wrtas Acat ^opovs Tra.p6f.vutv
Ls re tv avry crvva,yov(ra,L /xeyaAag. The sub-
stance of this important passage is that Delos largely
owed its glory to the honours paid it by the surrounding
Cyclades, whose communities as such constantly deputed
sacred embassies, provided solemn sacrifices, and sent
choirs of maidens to add beauty and solemnity to Delian
festal gatherings. Such in general terms were the Cyclades,
islands far more noteworthy than the Sporades. A detailed
examination of Strabo s account and list first of the
Sporades and then of the Cyclades is now necessary. If it
be desired to give a list of the Sporades according to
Strabo, the matter will be a difficult one. But though he
396 APPENDIX IX
does not mention all, the following are some of them.
Thera (p. 484, and cf. p. 485 quoted above), Thucydides
to the contrary notwithstanding, is one of Strabo s Aegean
Sporades, Amorgos is distinctly classed as such (p. 487
end). Anaphe is classed along with Thera (p. 485, cf.
Apollonius Rhod. iv. 1709), Sicinos, los, Pholegandros,
and Gyaros, as of the Sporades, so that all insignificant
islands in the neighbourhood of the Cyclades are added to
those of equally small pretensions to the eastward the
Carpathos group, the Calydnae isles, and all manner of
small fry in the neighbourhood of Rhodes, Cos, and Samos
these are the Sporades. 1
And now for the list 01 the chosen Cyclades given by
Strabo (p. 485, book x.) He says somewhat vaguely :
" The number given to begin with was twelve, 2 but several
have been added to the list." Then he quotes Artemi-
dorus an Ephesian who wrote eleven books on geography
1 For fuller information from other authors as well as Strabo, see the
article "Sporades" in Pape s Worterbuch der Eigennamen, where a list
is given as follows : Anaphe, Astypalaea, Amorgos- Patage, Autoniate or
Hiera, Ascania, Azibinthia, Atragia, Aigilia, Bouporthmos - Machia,
Gyaros, Gerus, Donusa, Dionysia, Elaphonesos, Helene and Eulimna,
Thera, Therasia, Icaria (Icaros), los, Hieracia, Hippouris, Casos, Crapa-
thos (Carpathos), Calydna and Calydna, Calymna, Cimolos, Cos (Coos),
Corsia, Cinaethos, Corassiae, Caminia, Cinara, Cythnosa.nd Cothon, Leros,
Lebinthos, Lea, Melos, Nisyros, Nicasia, Patmos, Proconnesos, Paros,
Platea, Sicinos, Seriphos, Scylos, Sapyle, Syrnos, Schinussa, Syme,
Telos, Tenos, Tenedos, Hypere, Pholegandros, Phacusia, Chalcia, Odia,
Oletandros, Olearos. I have italicised those names which are also to be
found on Strabo s list of twelve Cyclades. The result is that there are
sixty-three islands to which, by some one or another, the name Sporades
has been given, and that only six islands (Andros, Myconos, Naxos,
Syros, Ceos, and Siphnos) on the usual list of Cyclades have never, so far
as we know, been classed as Sporades.
2 Pape, quoting (s.v. Ku/cXds) Steph. Byz., says that according to the
ancients there were more than twelve, and then gives the list of Stephanus,
as follows: (i) Aegina ; (2) Amorgos; (3) Andros; (4) Antissa ; (5)
Aspis ; (6) Astypalaea; (7) Delos ; (8) Icaros; (9) los; (10) Kos ;
( 1 1) Casos and Nasion ; (12) Cythnos ; (13) Melos ; (14) Myconos ; (15)
Naxos ; (16) Nisyros; (17) Paros ; (18) Peparethos ; (19) Siphnos ;
(20) Telos; (21) Tenos ; (22) Tragiae ; (23) Olearos. It will be seen
that except Cimolos, Syros, Seriphos, and Ceos, all of Strabo s twelve are
on this list in italics.
THE CYC LADES AND SPORADES 397
early in the first century B.C. who enumerates fifteen
Cyclades as follows : (i) Ceos ; (2) Sithnos ; (3) Seriphos ;
(4) Melos; (5) Siphnos ; (6) Cimolos ; (7) Prepesinthos ;
(8) Oliaros; (9) Paros ; (10) Naxos ; (n) Syros ; (12)
Myconos; (i3)Tenos; (14) Andros; 1 (15) Gyaros. Out
of these Strabo takes, without comment, (8) Oliaros and
(7) Prepesinthos, and with a reason (15) Gyaros, leaving
just twelve, which number, he says, figured as that of the
Cyclades at the very first. It is plain that Thucydides had
a somewhat different list, since Thera was upon it, an island
not thought of by Artemidorus, and classed by Strabo among
the Sporades.
The reason which Strabo gives for excluding Gyaros
from the chosen islands is evidently the fact that it was
bare of all resources. He tells an anecdote to illustrate
this, and finally quotes a line from the Elegant Trifles of
Aratus, where Leto is reproachfully apostrophised for
passing her votary by, even as she passed Pholegandros or
Gyaros by. Thus we are brought round again to the
divine selection of certain islands to be the holy Cyclades.
After the day of Strabo the number twelve was appar
ently adhered to, for the phrase Dodekanisia Twelve-
islands survived into Byzantine and mediaeval times, and
finally seems to have stood for many, if not all, islands in
the Aegean. 2 The word Archipelago, which arose in the
later days of Italian supremacy, seems never wholly to
have lost its reference to the sea. Bursian (quoting
Forbiger) is my authority for understanding it as a cor
ruption of Aegaeon pelagos?
1 It is interesting to note that two of the Bahamas bear the name
Andros, not, however, taken from the Aegean, but probably from Governor
Andros of memory unblessed in the colonial records of the United States
of America. A French navigator also tried to fix the name Grandes
Cyclades upon a group lying south of the Caroline Islands.
2 It would seem that Diocletian s e-rrapxia vyvuv l\.vK\d8wv survived
under this altered name, which corrected the implication that all its fifty-
three islands were of the sacred twelve.
3 Bursian, iii. p. 351, notes ; Forbiger, Handbuch der alien Geographic,
ii. p. 19 ff. : Alyatov TrtXayos, Aegeopelago, Agiopelago, Azopelago,
398 APPENDIX IX
It remains now to consider what are the modern
Cyclades and Sporades. The modern Department of the
Cyclades covers practically all islands that group them
selves around Delos, Rhenea, and the twelve Cyclades of
old. These are those islands lying east of the Pelopon
nesus and north of Crete which are not misruled by Turkey,
but enjoy freedom under the kingdom of Greece. East of
these lie the Turkish islands, to which (large and small
alike) is given the name of Sporades. Certain Greek
islands, north and east of Euboea, are now sometimes
called the Northern Sporades, a convenient use of the term
which Strabo would not have found it easy to understand.
Archipelago. The form Arcipelago occurs first in a treaty of June 3oth,
1268, between Michel Palaeologus and Venice.
APPENDIX X
THE WORSHIP OF APHRODITE AND OF
STRANGE GODS AT DELOS
PAUSANIAS (IX. xl. 3), in speaking of ancient wooden idols
(oava) traditionally attributed to Daedalus, says: "The
Delians also have a rather small wooden image of Aphro
dite, the right arm of which by the lapse of years has
suffered grievous disfigurement. The lower part of it is
square, and there are no feet. I am convinced that
Ariadne received this image from Daedalus, and that when
she went with Theseus she took it with her from home.
Now the Delians say that when Theseus had been parted
from her he dedicated the image to Delian Apollo, that he
might not, by bringing it home with him, have the remem
brance of Ariadne revived and be constantly renewing his
griefs l on account of the love of her."
The form in which Pausanias gives this legend, which is
no doubt its latest one, throws an interesting light upon the
following observation 2 of M. Homolle : " II n est pour ainsi
dire, pas une legende delienne qui n ait sa contre-partie dans
une legende athenienne, 3 destinee a prouver la primaute
religieuse d Athenes et ses droits sur De los." In the above
passage of Pausanias we read an Athenian legend which had
1 Paus. I. xxii. 5. - Note 32 to his article " Delia" above quoted.
, 3 This is true even of the birth-legend of Apollo and Artemis^ partially
transferred by Attic legend to Cape Zoster, in Attica. Pausanias, I. xxxii.
i. Cf. Baiter and Sauppe, Orat. Att., Hyperides, fr. 286, 39, and 286, 65.
400 APPENDIX X
evidently driven the original Delian account of the ancient
statue of Aphrodite from the minds even of the native
Delians. If Theseus played any part in their original story,
it was probably not the beau role of a faithful lover ; it is
only or chiefly in Athenian legends that Theseus is the
plaintiff (o dfaipeOek). 1
This story of Theseus then may be classed with the
other Attico-Delian legend to the effect that Theseus taught
the islanders their characteristic crane-dance. They danced
this around the altar of horns in a strange building 2 placed
in front of Apollo s Delian temple, which has been ingeni
ously described under the name of the Hall of Bulls. This
dance is reported to have been a representation of the way
of Theseus through the mazes of the Cretan Labyrinth. If
the name crane-dance implies resemblance to the lines of
flocking cranes that move across Greek skies, then the
comparison to Theseus in the Labyrinth falls of its own
weight, and a far nearer parallel is the modern peasant s
dance called the Syrtos. 3
To reconstruct the forgotten Delian legend of the
crane-dance would be as impossible as to ascertain what
account the ancient Delians gave of their wooden idol of
Aphrodite. It is probable that anciently the local cults of
Delos and Naxos were most closely united ; the antiquity of
the colossal statue set up by the Naxians at Delos proves
their especial devotion to Apollo, as do also abundant
traces of his early worship on Naxos. The reasons for
identifying Ariadne with Aphrodite, as one phase of that
1 Cf. Pausanias, X. xxix. 4.
2 It appears to have been upwards of 220 feet long and only 40 feet
wide. See M. Homolle s account in the Bulletin de Correspondance
Helllnique.
3 This dance is consecrated in the minds of Greek patriots by the fact
that it is associated with the heroic defence of the Khan of Gravia. There,
as the enemy approached, and it became evident that a picked company
must stand out against them, the gallant Odysseus led off the Syrtos
whereby he gathered his chosen band of 180 into the Khan of Gravia,
that modern Greek Thermopylae whose Leonidas survived with nearly all
his men.
WORSHIP OF APHRODITE AND STRANGE GODS 401
elusive godhead, are abundant, and therefore it seems likely
that the most ancient worship of Aphrodite at Delos was
the same in origin with that of Ariadne upon Naxos. There
appear in fact to have been two aspects of this Aphrodite-
Ariadne, (i) the one whom Dionysus espoused, a triumph
ant and immortal goddess, (2) she who was forsaken of
Theseus and doomed to a lonely death. As the spring
time bride of Dionysus, Ariadne was the gladsome spirit of
love and vegetation. As the forsaken spouse of Theseus,
she was that same spirit doomed to a wintry eclipse. Both
of these phases recur in Cypriote as in Assyrian legends.
In Cyprus Aphrodite was entombed as Ariadne-Aphrodite.
The legend of Theseus abandonment of Ariadne in the
form less creditable to him was also current in Cyprus.
The other links between Delos and Aphrodite, not the
Paphian goddess in particular, but the goddess at large, and
more especially her eastern prototypes and parallels, belong
to the latter days of Delian independence and to that final
period when, after 166 B.C., Delos was restored to control
nominally Athenian but really Roman. This was a time
when distinctions between the gods of one people and
those of another were falling away, and when each god of
Greece and Rome tended to become every other one. By
this time Apollo certainly may well have begun to feel that
he had little pre-eminence at Delos, and could hardly
recognise in the great emporium for buying and selling
slaves the island of his birth.
Not far from the most ancient cave temple on the flanks
of Mount Cynthus was set apart what may be called the
precinct of the foreign gods, and there an inscription has
been found to Eros Harpocrates Apollo}-
Here is combination and to spare. In the Eleusinian
rites divinities such as Rhea Cybele and Demeter were
merged into one, but only in the fulness of time, when
their worships and their stories, after running parallel, had
1 See upon this whole subject two admirable articles by M. Hauvette
Besnault in the Bulletin de Correspondance Helttnique for 1882.
2 D
402 APPENDIX X
gradually been united. This gradual fusion was impossible
in the case of Apollo and Harpocrates or Horus, two names
for one Egyptian god whose resemblance to Apollo was
purely superficial. Through this Egyptian interloper Apollo
on his own native soil becomes one with the god Eros, and
thus enters into union with Aphrodite the mother of all
loves. But perhaps this point should not be insisted upon,
and we should rather say that the precinct of the foreign
gods on Mount Cynthus of Delos became foreign soil,
where Apollo was neither really himself nor even first among
the strange gods who there broke down the reserve of his
nature and made themselves identical with him. Such an
exterritorial character in this precinct seems implied by an
inscribed enumeration of divinities where Apollo is neither
first nor last among a whole procession of Egyptian gods
and goddesses Harpocrates, Serapis, Apollo, Isis, and
Anubis. This precinct was certainly not in existence until
the days of the breaking up of pagan divinities, and its
Egyptian gods were unknown in the early days of the purer,
nobler, and more exclusively Grecian rite of Delian Apollo.
And yet its nearest neighbouring shrines are the oldest on
the whole island. The precinct itself is on the western
slope of Mount Cynthus, next to the most ancient holy way.
This holy way led from the summit where was the old-
time temple of Zeus Cynthius and Athena Cynthia to
that mysteriously primeval place of Delian worship called
the cave-temple of Apollo. Near by and a little below on
the downward journey to the plain and city of Delos lay
this precinct of the foreign gods. In it were two diminutive
temples or shrines, one of Serapis and one of Isis. Just
below and northward runs the bed of a ravine bordered by
what is believed to have been the Cabirion, a temple for
the worship of the more or less unclean and unmentionable
Cabiri. 1 These gods came originally from Phoenicia, and
1 The German School at Athens made important discoveries in
excavating the Cabirion close to Thebes in Boeotia. This was in the
winter 1888-89.
WORSHIP OF APHRODITE AND STRANGE GODS 403
were associated with the mysteries of Samothrace, a north
ward island where were cultivated the less noble and more
questionable aspects of a nature worship in substance not
unlike that of Eleusis.
The presence here of Phoenician Cabiri may prepare us
for another Phoenician divinity with whom we have been
lately occupied : I mean the so-called Syrian goddess. The
ready confusions and hastily made conglomerations of latter-
day pagan worship are nowhere more conspicuous than in
the latest, the cosmopolitan era of Delos. No worship
more fully illustrates it than this of Syrian Aphrodite. We
must not, though we rightly call her Aphrodite, connect her
too closely with the Paphian goddess. On the other hand
she was in the latter days not purely Phoenician, but was
associated in worship with Egyptian Isis ; and her cult,
with that of the other strange gods in this precinct, was
supervised and administered by Greek officials.
This had a curious result, i.e. the establishment by
Phoenicians under native management of a second worship
of the Syrian goddess Atargatis. The reason for this striking
duplication of sanctuaries and observances in honour of
one and the same goddess is that newly arrived Syrians,
merchants fresh from Beyrut, from Antioch and from Sidon,
found at Delos, in the Syrian goddess worshipped in Greek
fashion on the north-western spur of Mount Cynthus,
nothing which they recognised as their own.
Three several times, then, and under three guises, did
Aphrodite visit Delos. Once as Ariadne forsaken of the
hero Theseus, once as a sort of Isis in the company of the
Cabiri and the chief gods of Egypt, and once as the
Atargatis worshipped by the Phoenician and Syrian colony
established for commerce in later days.
APPENDIX XI
PHOTOGRAPHS REFERRED TO FOR
ILLUSTRATIONS
N.B. By the kindness of Mr. Leaf I am able to place certain
numbers on his list^ as well as many upon that for which
I am now chiefly responsible^ at the disposal of those who
might wish to procure illustrations. The lists in question
are issued by the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic
Studies. Those of my readers who belong to that society
can procure all these and many other Greek pictures at
cost price. Those who are not members of the Hellenic
Society will Jind below the prices at which they can pro
cure various illustrations as enumerated. L. D.
I. LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN IN GREECE AND
CYPRUS, JANUARY TO JUNE 1888, BY MR. MALCOLM
MACMILLAN AND MR. Louis DYER.
Notice. These photographs measure 8x6 inches and
may be procured at a cost, including postage, of 123. per
dozen from Messrs. Walker & Boutall, 16 Clifford s Inn,
Fleet Street, London, E.G. Single prints may be obtained
at is. each.
PHOTOGRAPHS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS 405
(a) ATHENS
THE ACROPOLIS
No.
1. The Theatre of Dionysus.
2. A Cyclopean wall (near the Asclepieum).
3. A Cyclopean pit (near the same).
7. The Bastion of Odysseus, the defender of Gravia (since
destroyed).
8. The Propylaea (from Cimon s Wall).
9. ,, ,, (from the top of the Parthenon).
14. The Parthenon, N.W. corner through a Byzantine arch
of the Erechtheum, showing in the middle dis
tance foundations attributed to the age of Pisis-
tratus.
1 8. The same (foundations seen from the roof of the
Acropolis Museum).
ACROPOLIS MUSEUM
2 1 . An ephebus (of the Apolline type).
LOWER TOWN
23. The Temple of Zeus (Olympieum) connected by its
final dedication with the deification of the Roman
emperors and the Bed of Illissus.
THE CARAPANOS MUSEUM
25. Aphrodite and Eros (terra cotta).
CENTRAL MUSEUM
30. A satyr found near Lamia. ;.
32. A sleeping maenad found S. of the Acropolis.
406 APPENDIX XI
(b) ATTICA
SUBURBS OF ATHENS
No
34. Colonos, the Cephissus (crossed lower down by the
Eleusinian procession).
35. Hill of Demeter Euchloos.
THE PIRAEUS
40. The babe Plutus found in the water near Eetionea
(Central Museum).
ELEUSIS
42. General view including the "Secos."
43. Lower gateway, medallion.
44. Appius Pulcher s gateway, debris.
ICARIA (STO DIONYSO)
46. Rapendosa valley and cave.
47. cave.
48. View from the brow of Rapendosa cliff, forming the
Sto Dionyso valley towards Marathon and Styra
in Euboea.
49. View from the same toward the Pentelic range.
THE AMERICAN FIND AT ICARIA
50. The ruined church untouched.
51. The ruined church pulled down.
52. Replica of " Marathonian Soldier," a head (archaic)
and a Bas-relief (stele).
53. The replica and a muleteer.
54. A crown of Icarian ivy devoted to Dionysus.
55. A bas-relief from the Icarian Pythion.
PHOTOGRAPHS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS 407
SUNIUM
No.
56. The temple of Athena, near view.
57. The same, far view, being "Cap Colonnas."
(f) THE CYCLADES
SYRA
58. Old Syra The Roman Catholic Upper Town.
59. The same (distant view).
60. A glimpse down a street of Old Syra.
6 1. Hermupolis Shipping, a Chiote Bombarda.
62. ,, ,, a Perama.
63. a Trechanderi from Siphnos,
a Goelette and a Trechanderi from Santorin
(Thera).
64. " La Caramanienne " performed by Syriote butchers.
65. The Psariana.
66. The Potamos : a street in Hermupolis.
67. Episcopio, view from the church terrace (inland).
68. The same, towards Rhenea.
THE SYRIOTE MUSEUM
69. Stele from Paros, a poor man s gravestone.
70. Inscription from los.
DELOS
71. The Lake of Leto.
7 2. Mount Cynthus, from the lake.
73. ,, from Apollo s temple.
74. Mount Cynthus, Cave temple from a Roman house.
75. ,, Cave temple (foundations).
408 APPENDIX XI
No.
77. Temple (on the slope of Mount Cynthus). Draped
female statue of Isis.
78. Portrait-statue of Caius Ofellius by Dionysius and
Timarchides of Athens.
79. Ruins of Apollo s temple.
80. Acroterion from same (Central Museum).
81.
82. The Naxian Colossus.
83. Rhenea from Mt. Cynthus and the lesser of the
Rheumatiari Reefs.
NAXOS
84. The Gateway of Dionysus.
85. Mt. Coronis.
86. The Valley of Paratrecho, and Mt. Zia or Ozia.
TENOS
87. Mt. Burgo and the Sanctuary of the Evangelistria.
(^CYPRUS
LlMASSOL
88. St. Nicholas monastery, a ruin near Cape Gatto.
89. The castle of the Knights Templars at Colossi.
BAFFO
90. The ruins at Old Paphos (Couclia), after the British
excavations.
91. Inscription from Old Paphos (elaeochristion).
92. The Eros of Paphos, from temple of Aphrodite. Ibid.
93. Same, profile view.
94. A terra cotta head from Old Paphos.
95. The Coucliote Diggers at Old Paphos.
96. The Bleeding Column, New Paphos.
PHOTOGRAPHS FOR ILL US TRA 7 IONS 409
LAPETHIA CERYNIA
No.
97. A tomb and a monastery at Lapethus.
98. A Byzantine fort in Cerynia.
99. The cloister at Bello Pais.
100. The castle " Dieu d Amour."
SALAMIS
10 1. The rampart and moat of Famagosta.
102. St. George and the cathedral-mosque of Famagosta.
103. Famagosta cathedral, from the rampart.
104. The same, nearer view.
105. The same, chantry door.
1 06. The same, minaret.
107. Gateway of the Lusignan palace at Famagosta.
THE VISCONTA
1 08. St. Sophia, the cathedral-mosque of Nicosia.
()_WESTERN GREECE
AEGINA
109. The temple of Athena, from below,
no. The same from nearer N.E.
in. S.E.
ARGOLIS
112. Tiryns citadel from the west.
113. The same, gallery toward Nauplia.
114. Argos museum, a Medusa.
115. Mycenae, the Lions gate.
1 1 6. A Cyclopean bridge near Epidaurus
117. Theatre seats at Epidaurus.
1 1 8. (orchestra) ,,
119. (stage)
410 APPENDIX XI
ARCADIA
No.
120. The battlefield of Tegea.
121. Heads from a Tegean temple (of Athena Alea), C.M.
122. Bassae-Phigalia, temple from N.E.
123. The same, interior.
LACONIA
124. Sellasia valley (Skiritis).
125. The valley of the Eurotas from Vrylias (Skiritis).
126. Spartan museum, the Omphalos relief.
127. An Amazon, etc. Ibid.
129. The Langgada. Pass (Taygetus) and distant Parnon.
130. The summit of Langgada Pass, Mt. Rindomo (Biscuit-
mountain).
131. The same in another direction, southerly Mt. Pigadia.
OLYMPIA
133. Ruins of the Heraeum from the gymnasium.
134. The Hermes (bearing the babe Dionysus) from the
Heraeum, now in the Syngro Museum.
135. Temple of Zeus, from Pelopion, E.J
136. W.|
137. The same, Metope, Nemean labour of Heracles,
Syngro Museum.
138. The same, Metope, Athena, nearer and front view.
139. ,, Augean labour, Syngro Museum.
140. ., the fetching of Cerberus, Syngro
Museum.
141. Western pediment, Syngro Museum.
142. Eastern
143. ,, Apollo from western pediment, Syngro
Museum.
144. The Kladeos, from the eastern pediment.
145. The same, debris on the south side.
146. A well near the same.
147. N.W. entrance of the Stadium.
148. A pugilist of note, bronze in the Syngro Museum.
PHOTOGRAPHS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS 411
CEPHALLENIA
No.
149. A view toward Ithaca from the road near Same.
ITHACA
150. View from Mount Aetos northward.
151. View on Mount Aetos (cyclopean wall of "Odysseus
castle ").
152. The Grotto of the Nymphs (so called).
II. CATALOGUE OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF GREECE BY
MR. WALTER LEAF.
These Photographs measure about 7x5 inches, and may
be procured at a cost of is. each in silver, or is. 6d. in
platinum, from Mr. CASSTINE, Photographic Studio, Swanley,
Kent. Platinum is recommended only for those marked
with an asterisk. The profits on the sale will go to the
Homes for Working Boys, Swanley.
ATHENS
2. *The British School : Lycabettus in background.
4. *The Acropolis from monument of Philopappus.
5. *The same : larger scale.
7. * Acropolis from Areopagus.
ELEUSIS
33. * Sekos from S.W. angle.
34. - f View towards S.E.
35. 36, 37- Sekos from N.W. angle. (These three form
a panoramic view.)
38. *Precinct of Pluto from S.
39. *Precinct of Pluto from N.
40. * Substructures of Sekos.
412 APPENDIX XI
SUNIUM
No.
42. *From S.E. 43. *From N.E.
44. *From E. 45. *From N.
46. *From W. 47. * Interior, looking W.
OROPOS
51. Theatre at Amphiareion.
52. *The same, showing Proscenium.
53. *The same, from N.W.
56. *The same, showing Seat of Priest.
CORINTH
65. Temple from N.E. 66. Temple from E.
DELPHI
73. * General View.
74. ^Substructure of Peribolos and Athenian Stoa.
76. *Castalian Spring.
77. ^Relief in Museum.
MONASTERY OF ST. LUKE, STIRIS.
80. Church, West Front.
8 1. Church, South Side.
82. 83. East End (these two form a single view).
86. General View from S.E. : Parnassus in background.
HELICON (HIERON OF THE MUSES)
87. General View : Hill of.Ascra to right.
88, 89. Proscenium of Theatre.
PHOTOGRAPHS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS 413
III. LIST OF ENLARGEMENTS FROM MR. WALTER
LEAF S PHOTOGRAPHS.
* # * These are selected from the list of eighty-nine small
photographs which are already accessible to members of the
Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. They are
also to be had by the public at large through the Autotype
Company, at No. 74 New Oxford Street, London, W.C.
No. SUBJECTS DIMENSIONS
1. Athens from the Monument of Philo-
pappus . . . . 17^x1 1 1 in.
2. Temple of Sunium, from N.E. . ,.. 17^ x nj ,,
3. Temple of Sunium, East end . . 17 J x 12 ,,
4. Temple of Corinth . . \~ . 17^x11
5. Delphi: General View . . 17! x n
6. Delphi : Peribolos Wall and Stoa of the
Athenians . . .17^x11,,
7. Eleusis : Remains of the Hall of the
Mysteries. .- . . 17^ x n| ,,
8. Eleusis: Precinct of Pluto . I 7i x IT i
9. View of St. Luke, Stiris : Parnassus in
the background . . . i7jxn|
INDICES
I. INDEX OF AUTHORS AND SOURCES
ACTS, chap, xiii., 290
Adams, Henry, History of United
States, 267
Aelian, story of the cure of a horse
by Serapis from, 254
Aeneas Sylvius de Piccolomini, 326
Aeschylus, Edoni, fr. 55, 158 ;
Eumen. 22 ff. , 23 ; Prom. 806, 177
Agnese, Battista, Portulano of, de
scribed, 329 f.
Allen, Professor F. D. , on the Uni
versity of Leyden, 347
Ameis-Hentze s Iliad, 317
Andocides, de Mysteriis, 110-112,
^ 75
Anthology, ix. 75, 108
Anthropological Institute, Journal of,
i6 9 i.
d Anville, Recherches Gtographiques
sur I ile de Chypre, 326
Apollinaris Sidonius, witness for
Apollonius, 265 f.
Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, I. iii. 5, 49;
I. v. 2, 64 ; I. v. 4, 63 ; III. x. i,
1 1 9 ; III. xiii. 6, 6j ; III. xiv. 7,
sos, 107
Apollonius Rhodius, iv. 1709, 396
Apollonius of Tyana, letters attri
buted to, xxxiii. , 22 3
Apuleius, 261 f.
Arabantinos, work on Epirus, 89
Aratus, Elegant Trifles by, 397 ;
Phaen. 91, 138, in
Archaeological Society, the Greek, at
Eleusis, 186
Archaeology (American], Journal of ,
2, 104
Archtologique, Revue, 227, 229
Archilochus, Frag. 3, Frag. 51, j6j
Architects, Royal Society of British,
Proceedings of, 232, 314 ; plan
reproduced from, 398
Aristides, prayer of, to inspired
dreams, 236, 242
Aristophanes, Birds, 28, schol. on,
874, 8^, 96. Frogs, jibes at
Dionysus, 78 ; 312, 154 ff. , 316-
459, 212 ; 372-459, 185 ; schol.
on 158, 181. Schol. on Knights,
697, 707. Peace, 374, 181.
Plutus, 727, 177. Thesmophoria-
zousae, 68, Wasps, 9, 85
Aristotle, Const. Ath. onEpimenides,
123 f. ; 3, j-jo; 13, 129; 15,
126, 137; 16, 126. Eth.Eud.\.\
init. Eth. Nicom. i. 8 fin. , 383.
Fr. 447, 382. Politics, v. 9,
129 ; v. 12, 126. Rhetoric, iii.
1 6, cites Antigone, 911 f., 166.
irepl 6av^,a.ff nt3v aKova/jidruv, cxxii.
133- 93-
Artemidorus, on the Cyclades, 395 f.
INDEX
415
Athenaeus, Deipnos. ii. 40 A, /// ;
iii. 78, 82 ; 416 B, 57 ; 533 C,
125 ; 609, 126 ; xiv. 614 B, 382
Attar, Leonida, unpublished map of
Cyprus by, 287
BACCHYLIDES, fr. 64, 62
Bachut, E., Histoire de la Mtdecine,
etc., no
Backofen s Mutterrecht, 168
Baglione, life of Astorre, 332
Bahr, on Orpheus, in Pauly, 127
Barry, F. W. , Report on Census
of Cyprus, 1884," 272
Bartolommeo "da li Sonetti,"
rhymed account of Venetian
islands by, 330 ; on Cythera, 286 ;
sonnets on " Sdiles, " 356
Bayle s Dictionary, translated in
1735, 266
Bede, Commentary on the Acts, 290
Benndorf, 795
Bentley, 775, 262
Bergeat, Herr Alfred, researches of,
on Cypriote geology, 275 f.
Bergk, Griechische Litteratur-
geschichte, 112, 317
Bernhardy, G. , Griechische Litter-
aturgeschichte, 115, 116, 123,
127, 736, 317. On Philostratus,
260
Bibliotheque Nationale, Dante (148 1 )
from the Vatican in the, 331
Bie, Oscar, Die Musen in derAntikcn
Kunst, 104
Bikelas, D., on Greek doctors, 267
ff. ; Loukis Laras by, 389
Birdwood, Sir George, K.C.I.E. ,
85 ; on Dionysus, 164 f.
Birmingham Speculative Club, essay
read before the, 226
Blaeuw, Atlas Major of John and
William, 343, 346 f.
Boccaccio, Teseide, VII. stanza 43,
286
Boissier, Gaston, La religion Ro-
maine," 15
Bordone, Benedetto, Isolario of,
328 i.
Braun, Kmil, Dr. , Kimstvorstellungen
des gefliigelten Dionysus, 779
Brenzone, life of Astorre Baglioni
b y. 332
Hritannica, Encyclopaedia, article
"Cyclades," criticised, 394
British Museum, additional MSS.,
Earl of Guilford, No. 8630.
3J6
Brown, Horatio F. , The Venetian
Printing Press, 329
Brucker, James, on Meursius,
350
Brunn, Denkmdler der Antiken
Kunst, by Dr., 795, 249, 270,
379
Buck, Carl, on the American find at
Icaria, 104
Bursian, 346, 397
Bustrone s Istoria di Cipro MSS.,
JSjf-
Byzantius, Stephanus, 394
CALLIMACHUS, Hymn to Apollo, 58-
63, 384. Hymn to Delos, 1-5,
370 \ 30 ff. and 92 f. , 359 ; 82
ff., 78; 206 ff., 356; 260 ff.,
357 ; 300 ff., 359, 393 \ 308 ff.,
379
Carr, Lucien, Women among the
Huron-Iroquois, 777
Casaubon, Meric, on Apollonius,
266
Cassel, Verein deutscher Philologen
und Schulmaenner at, 104
Cervantes, " Journey to Parnassus,"
2 4
Chaucer, " Knight s Tale," 1363,
286
Christus Fattens, 4, 139
Cicero, Ad Atticum, vi. i, i8S\
v. 15, vi. i, 258. Phil. II. xliii.
no, XIII. xix. 41, 37
Cicogna, 331
Claudian, on Cyprus, 274
Clement, of Alexandria, Protrept. iii.
ad fin., 309 ; p. 3. 7 77
Clement the Roman, Homil. v. 23,
309
416
INDEX
Colvin, Mr. Sidney, on the Homeric
Hymn to Demeter, 54 f. , 37 f. ,
ISO
Comparetti, on date of Orphic frag
ments, 181
Corlieu, " Atude me"dicale sur la
retraite des 10,000," 225
Cornhill, vol. xxxiii. June, 1876,
54
Coronelli, I solaria of, 343 ; Morea
of, 288
Correr Museo, unpublished map in,
287
Cudvvorth, 265 f.
DANTE, Par. xix. 22, 74 ; xxi. 71,
42
Daremberg, Charles, Etat de la
Mtdecine entre Homere et Hippo-
crate, 226 ; on Hippocrates, irepi
ei}&lt;r%77/iocn;i&gt;?7S, 2jS ; Histoire des
Sciences Mtdicales, 223 ; etudes
d arche"ologie me"dicale sur
Homere," 227 ; list of Alexand
rine doctors, 2ig
Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire
des Antiquit^s, 66, i8j f . , 363,
371, 376 f. , J99
Daures, Gabriel, on " Delos," 373 f.
Dawkins, Mr. Clinton, 164
Diehl,Ch. , Excursions archtologiques
en Grece, 387
Dilettanti, Society of, Unedited
Antiquities of Attica, i86\ Anti
quities of Ionia, 387
Dindorf, rejects Bacch. 286-297, 767
Dio Cassius, 37 f. , 261
Diogenes Laertius,- 125, 382 ; a
quotation from Aristotle by, 382
Domenichi, Ludovico, Facezia, 331
Dorpfeld, Dr. William, i, 186, 194,
197, 202
Dryden, Palamon and Arcite, 286
Duemmler, account of an early
Semitic occupation of Cyprus, 280
Duncker, 272
Dyer, L. , 779
Epdoft&s, Athenian periodical, 89
Eckermann, Conversations with
Gothe, 162, 166
Edinburgh, Philosophical Institute
of, 3
Egger, A. E. , /j
Emperius places the Satrachus at
Paphos, 346
Engel, "Cyprus," j/j f., 323,
352 f.
Epiphanies in Cyprus, 278 f.
E7ri0ew/)tcrts, Ai&gt;aToAt/c77, Athenian
periodical, 89
Erasmus, 237, 260
Ersch and Gruber, Allgemeine En
cyclopaedic, Attica, 344
Etymologicum Magmim, 107, 344,
J59&gt; 39 1
Eunapius, 188
Euripides, Alcestis, 360, 777. Bac
chanals, 136-162 ; lines 274-276,
f ^5 : 33 ft. 99 I 3 8 5- 46 ff-,
287 ; 404 ff. , 348, 352 f. ; 877-
881, 897-901, 184 ; 1344, 4.
Electra, 71. Frag. 177, 318 ;
394. 30 I 752, 23. Hecuba, 457
ff., 363 ; 459, jj-6 ; 1267, 96.
Helena, 1098, 304. Heraclidae,
66. Ion, 23, 3s; 713, j- ; 919
ff., 364 ; 1571-1600, 391 ; 1583,
393. Iph. in Tauris, 34 f. ;
264-274, 146 , 1089-1105, 358,
363; 1193, 210; 1244, 25 &gt;
1401 f., jjo. Rhesus, 36, 99 ;
701, 391. Phoen. 205 ff. and
226 ff., 25 ; 687, 48
Eusebius of Caesarea, 263, 290
Eustathius, on Dion. Per., 344.
On //. i. 18, 327 ; ii. 637, z6j,
344 \ vi. 132, 132
Evenus, of Ascalon, Anthol. ix. 75,
108
FABRICIUS, note on Dio, 44, 6, 37 f.
Felix, Quintus Minucius, the Octav-
ius of, 8
Fitzgerald s Rubaiyat, 91
Foerster, R. , Raub der Kara, 70
Folk-Lore, J. G. Frazer on May
festival, 8
INDEX
417
Forbiger, quoted by Bursian, j&gt;p7 f.
Fortnightly, Mr. Pater s articles in
the, 27
Foster, B. W., M.D., Essay read
before Birmingham Speculative
Club, 226
Foucart, M. , work at Delphi, 33
Fourcade, unpublished report of, on
Cypriote agriculture, 281
Frazer, ]. G. , the Golden Bough, 27,
50, /J9 ; on May festivals, 8g
Friedlaender, Darstellungen aus der
Sittengeschichte Rom s, etc. , 8
Furtwaengler, on Alcamenes Aphro
dite, 270 ; in Roscher s Lexicon,
271
GAILLARD S Medical Journal, 241
Galen, 23 4 f.
Gardner, Mr. Ernest, Excavations
in Cyprus, 305
Gardner, Professor, on sculptures of
Dionysus and Icarius, 105
Gaudry, M. Albert, Recherches
scientifiques dans V Orient, 275-
277, 280
Geel places Satrachus at Paphos,
34^
Gellius, xv. 10, no
Gennadius, 389
Geographical Societies, publications
of, Berlin, 275 ; de I Est, 387 ;
Munich, 275 ; France, 275
Gdographie, Revue de, 324
Geological map of Cyprus, 275
Ge"ologique, Socie te , 275
Gildersleeve, Professor B. L. , Essays
and Studies, 238 f. , 297, 303
Girard, Paul, L Ascltpieion, etc., 2
Gladstone, the Right Hon. W. E.
on Eumaeus, 47
Gloucester, Warburton, bishop of,
180
Goethe, on Aberglaube, 7 ; wished
Antigone 904 ff. proved spurious,
166. The Bacchanals, translation
from, 162 ; Conversations with
Eckermann, 162, 166 ; on th
sublime in Euripides, 162
Grecques, Association des Etudes
(Monuments), 70
regory, St., of Narianzum, 4
rohs, Hugo, on Dio Cassius, j8
Sronovius, A., 349 f. ; ]. .,347
uardia, La Mldecine a travers Us
Siccles, 226
HARRISON, Miss Jane, and Mrs.
Verrall, Mythology and Monu
ments of Athens, 27 , 106, no,
no, 124, 176, foj
Hauvette, M. , on strange gods at
Delos, 401
Heffter, j/j f.
Hellenic Studies, Journal of, 2, 33,
inf., 181, joj
HelUnique, Bulletin de Corres-
pondance, 2, 400 f.
Hermesianax, of Cyprus, 25-
Herodotus, i. 14, 02 ; 28, 85 ; 30,
122 ; 35, 02; 59, 120; 105,
273 ; 131, 208; 169, J02 ; 199,
208. ii. 48 f., 164 ; 52, 77 ; 81,
164 I 97. 39 2 &lt; 146, v6j ; 170,
357 I 7L jr. iii. 90, 85 ; 97,
6j; 119, 166. iv. 79, 77 ; 94,
86. v. 4 f. , 84 ; 30, J02 ; 67,
IZ 5 74 *9S- vi. 64, 75, 198.
vii. 6, 127 ; 75, 85. viii. 32,
sj ; 65, 209 f. ; 138, 02
Herophilus, 237 f.
Hesiod, Theogony, 347, 355, 08 ;
406 ff., J57; 455. 9$ \ 502,
112 \ 769, 08; 912, jo;
913, 08 ; 969 ff. , 62, 07.
Works and Days, 298, j/ ; 463-
466, jrj ; 466, 32 ; 502, 132 ; 504
ff. , Ji2 ; 700 f. , JJ9
Hesychius, 82, 120, 132, 344
Heuzey, M. , on Demeter Graia,
70
Hieronymus, note on Eusebius, 200
Hippocrates, 220, 223, 225, 234,
238 ; irepl fixrx r ll JLOff v v n*i 2 3&
Hogarth, Mr. D. G. , on Aphrodite
of the Hittites, 320-322 ; Dei ia
Cypria, 282, 200, 343
Holwerda, 272
2 E
4 i8
INDEX
Homer, Iliad, ii. 695, 47. iii. 374,
316; 413 ft., 27 j. v. 125, 47 ;
131, 312, 371,382, 316 ; 500,
^7; 820, 316. vi. 135, 77.
xiii. 322, 46, 32. xiv. 193, 224,
316 ; 325, 97 ; 326, 48. xvi.
514 ff., 29. xx. 105, j/A xxi.
76, ^r6 ; 416, 316. xxiii. 220, 9^.
Odyssey, i. 93 f . , 285, &lt;lr. ii.
125, 48 \ 214, 359, 61. iv.
83, 2c/ ; 702, 61, v. 123 ft".,
367 ; 125 ff. , 6.2. vi. 162 ff. ,
SSf. viii. 288, 317 ; 308, j/&lt;5 ;
363, 287. ix. 196-213, 91. xi.
97- ; 217, 48. xiii. 250, 67. xv.
409. 367- xviii. 193, j/7. xix.
171 ff., 61
Homeric Hymns, i. 372 ; 16 ff. ,
jj6; 30-45, 392; 53 ff., jj7;
118 f., Jj6; 135, 139, 357.
iv. 59, 2c?7 ; 247 ff. , 271, 273.
v. 54-68 ; 4, 46 ; 272, 2/5. vii.
28, 284. xvi. .243-. xxxiv. 163 f.
Homolle, M. The"ophile, 2, 33, 389 f. ,
400 ; work at Delphi, 33 ; lecture
on Delos, 387 ; article Delia " in
Daremberg and Saglio, 363, 376
f-. 399
Horace, Od. iv. 5, 39, 38 ; iv. 14,
25. 95
Hutchinson, W., on Northumber
land, 49
Hyginus, Fab., 59, 65 ; 130, /-jj- ;
147, 64 ; 191, 92 ; 225, 119 ;
276, JW
Hyperides, fr. 286 (39, 65), J99
IAMBLICHUS, a quotation from
Aristotle by, 382
Imola, Benvenuto da, Commentary
on Dante, 25
Im Thurm, testimony on couvade,
170
Inscriptions, 43 ; C.I.G. 3525, 14
C.LL. iii. i, 685, 87 ; found at
Delos, 274, 373 ; found at Epi-
daurus, M. Kabbadias and the,
2 37 ] P- Six on Cypriote coin
bearing an, 344
Institut, Memoires de V , 326
Isaiah, 281
JACOB, on Ant. 904 ff. , 166
Jebb, Professor, 3, ii, 133, 166 f.
Jerusalem, letter to the bishop of,
278
Jowett, Dr., 127
Judaeus, Philo, Legatio ad Caium,
14
Justin Martyr, judgment on Apol-
lonius attributed to, 266
KABBADIAS, M., 2, 237
Kalogeropoulos, P. D. , 88 f.
Kampouroglous, 89
Keary, C. F., 6, 9, 16, 52, 371
Kenyon, Mr. F. G., 126, 132, /J7
Kern, Dr. , 194 f.
Kiel, Schriften der Universitat zu,
104
Kitchener, Major, map of Cyprus,
325
Kock, Dr. Theodor, 215
Krause, 44
LAMI, edition of Meursius by, 349 f.
Landor, /jo
Lang, R. Hamilton, 280, 288
Largus, Scribonius, 237
La Roche, edition of Odyssey, 61 .
Lebegue, Recherches sur Ddlos, 385
Lehrs, Populare Aufsatze, 10, 20 f.
Lenormant, M. F. , 66, 70, fSj,
217
Leunclavius, 37
Lloyd, Bishop, letter to Bentley, 262
Lobeck s Aglaophamus, 127
Lucan, 24 f.
Lucian, 107, 239, 261-263, 270,
388
Lucretius, 300, 304
Lumbroso, G., 13
Lusignan, Estienne de, 275, 285 f. ,
334 ff., 342
Lyall, Sir Alfred, 12
Lycophron s Alexandra, 447-452,
345*-
Lyon, Professor D. G., 301
INDEX
419
Macmillaris Magazine, 27, 101
Macrobius, 30, 93, 96
Malgaigne, 223
Mannert, 353
Mannhardt, William, 27, 53, 97,
182, 208, 379
Marcellinus, Ammianus, 308
Marcian Library, unpublished MSS.
of Meursius, 274 ; unpublished
MS. of a speech by Zuanne Po-
docatharo, 340 ; Portulano No.
9, 329 f. ; Bessarion s MSS. of
Strabo, 325
Marianus, Scotus, 290
Marquardt, 38, 44, 393
Martial, 276
Mas Latrie, Comte de, 278, 326
Maximus Tyrius, 293
Medecine, Gazette de, 223
Medicine, Academy of (N.Y.), 241 ;
Gaillard s Journal of, 241
Menander, 151
Merriam, Dr. A. C., 13-15, 32, 107
f., in, 115-117, 133, 237, 241
Meursius, John, 346-354 ; Cerami-
cus, 349 ; (MSS.) Cyprus, 274 f.,
290, 350-352 ; (Graev s edition)
Cyprus, 347 ; " De denario
Pythagorico, " 350 ; on Lycoph-
ron, 346 , Pisistratus, 347 ;
" Themis Attica," 350 ; on Theo
critus, 348
Middleton, Professor J. H., 33
Milton, 79, 360 ; Comus, 146, 148,
150
Minucius Felix, 20
Moellendorf, Wilamovitz, 238
Mommsen, 13, 83
More, Henry, the Platonist, 19, 264
Miiller, E., 258
Miiller, K. O. , map of Salamis by,
344
Munro, J. Arthur R., 280
Musgrave, 346
Nation, The, of New York, 2, 23,
305
Nazianzum, Gregory of, 707
Newton, Sir Charles, i, 69 f. , 795
Nipperdey, on Tacitus, 43
Nonnus, 92, 109, 139 ; Dionysiaca,
i. 5, 142 \ x. init. 99 ; xiii. 458
ff-. 345 I xiv- I2 o ff-i 99; xix.
261 ff. , 95; xxvii. 283-307, 707;
xlv. 99, 142 ; xlvi. passim 707-
77O
Northumberland, A view of, etc.,
49 f.
Nouvelle Revue, 374
OBERHUMMER, Dr., 275 f., 278
Olympiodorus, 87
Omar, the Persian, 97
Origen, 258, 264, 278
Orphic .Hymns on Dionysus, 22,
162
Orphic fragments, 7&lt;?7
Ortelius, Abraham, maps of Cyprus,
324, 326, 343, 135
Osann, on the Lesser Mysteries,
104, 124
Ovid, 64 f. , 375, Fasti, iii. 717, 142 ;
v. 145, 38. Her. ii. 65
PAMPHOS, 122, 175
Pandora, Athenian periodical, 89
Pape, Diet, of Proper Names, 132,
39&lt;&gt;
Pater, Mr., 26 f., 70, 101, 136, 169,
235 i., 242
Pathe, C. von Wulfften, on Philos-
tratus, 259
Patzig, H., 27
Pauly s Real - Encyclopaedic dcr
Alterthumswissenschaft, 44, 118,
127
Pausanias, 32, 218, 247, 285 ; I. ii.
5, 104 ; ii. 7, 135 ; iv. 5, 92 ; xiv.
1-4, 776 ; ibid. 3 f., 124 \ xxii. i,
5, j&gt;99 ; xxxi. 4, 31, 82 ; xxxii.
i, J99 ; xxxviii. 3, 64, 122, 175;
ibid. 7, 64. II. ii. 5, 6, 7&lt;?9 ;
ibid. 14, 65 ; xxiv. 6, 99 ; xxxv.
4, 776. III. xix. 6, 779 ; xxiii.
i, j&gt;77. IV. iii. 10, 65. V. x.
8, 9. VIII. v. 2, 286 ; xxiv. i,
6, 286 ; xxv. 4, 176 ; xlviii. 3,
J77 ; liii. 3, 286. IX. xii. j,
420
INDEX
140 ; xx. i, 1 1 9 ; xl. 3, 399
ibid. 3, 4, 379. X. iv. 3, 132
xxix. 4, ^oo ; xxxii. 6, 25-
Peabody Museum, Report of Trus
tees of, 171
Penrose, Mr. F. C. , 232, 314
Perrot and Chipiez, 310
Perry, Mr. T. S., if 2
Petelia, Orphic inscriptions found at
181
Pfander on Euripides, 157
Pherecydes, 64
Philios, Dr., i, 196 f.
Philo, Judaeus, 14
Philological Association, Transac
tions of the American, JTJ, 347
Philologus, the, j6, 345
Philostratus, 258-261* 263 \ Epist
39. ^07
Phurnutus (Cornutus), quoted b;
Meursius, 274
Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius de
3*61
Pindar, 71, 130. Olympian Odes, i
102 ; ii, 71 \ 12, 102. Pythian
Odes, 3, &lt;?ff., 369; 9, 369
Pius II. (de 1 Piccolomini), 326 f.
Plato, 19. Apol. 21 B, 370. Epi-
nomis, 487 E, 297. Laws, viii.
init. , 177. Rep. ii. 364 B, 181 ;
382 -383 B, 370
Plautus, Mercator, init., 272
Pliny, 41 f., 253. Nat. Hist. II.
vi. 12, vii. 18, 19, 42 VII. viii.
45. 42 ; 59. 107 ; 195, 294
Plutarch, Alexander, 97 ; Antony,
24, 79 ; Aristides, 27, 210 ;
Demetrius, 26, 209 ; Flamininus,
16, 40 ; Nicias, 3, J79 ; Pericles,
13, 7-97; Solon, 12, .T2?; 29, z/d,
7.2&lt;5 ; Theseus, 23, .577
Plutarch, Pseudo-, De Anima, no ;
tract on Isis and Osiris, 22 ; De
Fluviis, 25 ; De primo frigido,
113 ; on Hesiod, 132 ; Quaest.
Rom. , 310 ; Sympos. , 103, 106,
258
Podocatharo, the family, 330-343 ;
Alessandro P., 339 ; Hettore P.,
Ritratte del Regno di Cipro, 330-
33S&gt; 340-342 ; Zuanne P. , his
appeal to Alvise Mocenigo
(Marcian MSS. ), 338-340
Polemon, 218
Porphyry, 72
Potli, 88
Praktika, i
Preller s Greek Mythology, 48, 98,
177 ; Plew s revision, 318 \ Ro
bert s revision, 272, 298 ; Ritter
and, Hist. Phil., 177
Procacci, Tommaso, L hole piu
famose del mondo, 330-333, 337
f. ; de Funerali Antichi, 331 \
Cagione delle Guerre Antiche, 331
Propertius, 14
Ptolemy, Bessarion s MS. of, 324
Pullan, R. P., z
QUINTILIAN, 42
RAGOZIN, Mme. Zenai de, 302
Ralli and Potli, Church History, 88
Rapp, Beziehungen des Dionysos-
kultes zu Thracien, 83
Reber, Professor, History of Art,
308
Ribbeck, Otto , A nfaenge des Dionysos-
kults in Attica, 104, 125, 129,
132
fitter and Preller, 777
Robert, Carl, interpretation of vase-
pictures by, 94
^onchaud, M. , 371
Roscher, Dr. W. H. , 402 ; Aus-
fiihrliches Lexicon der Griechis-
chen und Roemischen Mythologie,
120, 139, 270, 292
Ross, Dr. L. , 290, 352, 389
oyal Institute, lecture before, 39
luhnken, 54
IALIGNACIUS, BARTHOLOMAEUS,
Itinerarii, 290
andys, Dr., 142, 146, 148
appho, 274, 304
assenay, le Marquis de, 324
cherer, Chr., 176 f., 194
INDEX
421
Schliemann, Dr. H., 106, 286
Schone on Euripides, 757
Schramm s Life of Meursius, 348
Schwalbe, 166
Seeley, Professor, on Roman Im
perialism, 39
Semus of Delos, 382
Seneca, 290
Servius, confusions about Parnassus,
24, 8s, 107
Sibylline Oracles, 290
Sidonius Apollinaris, 265
Six, Dr. J. P. , 344
Smith, Mr. Cecil, 181
Smith, Mr. R. Elsey, 252, 305-308
Sophocles, 133. Antigone, 904-915,
discussion of interpolation of,
166 f. ; 1115-1152, 133 f. ; 1119,
the reading Icaria justified, 133 ;
1126, 1144 f., 25; 1200, 777.
Philoctetes, 177, 237. Triptole-
mus, 77
Stephanus, Byzantinus, 105, 181,
274, 344
Strabo, 183 f. , 325, 3 2 7&gt; 34 f &gt; 395-
397 \ 37. 358 &gt; 271, 356 \ 371,
103 ; 375. 237 ; 383, 218 ; 394,
345 \ 395. l8 9 &gt; 4 12 . **8\ 4 J 7 f -.
25 ", 4 6 3-474. 94 I 4 6 7. i&4\
468, 132, 159 ; 474, 395 ; 479.
123 f. ; 484, 306 ; 480, 360 ;
485. 359&gt; Jte. 395 f - J 564.
^5 ; 633, 122 ; 683, the tradi
tional punctuation changed accord
ing to Bessarion s MSS., 325
Suetonius, 14, 37 f.
Sybaris, Orphic fragments found at,
181
Syncellus, 7/9
TACITUS, Ann. i. 72, iv. 42, xii.
4, xiii. ii, 43 ; iv. 20, 42; iv.
55, 44. Hist. iv. 81, 42
Themistius, ir6
Theocritus, 318, 394
Theognis, 356, 381, 384
Theopompus, 126
Thiersch, 130
Thraemer, 779
Thucydides, 7J7, 361-363
Tomaschek, 86
Tournefort s description of Cyprus,
385
Tylor, Dr., 769 f., 289-207
Tyrius, Maximus, 2OJ
Tyrrell, Professor, 757, 162, 166 f.
UNGER, Dr. Robert, 345
Uspergensis, Abbas, 290
VERCOUTRE, Dr., 229
Verrall, Mrs., 27, 124
Vienna, Reports of Academy, 86
Virgil, Aeneid, iii. 15, 85 \ 73, 359 \
74,jj&lt;?; 85-101, 370. Georgics,
i. 21-31, 14
Vitruvius, 797
Voigt, F. A., 97, 120, 159,
176 f.
WARBURTON, The Divine Legation
of Moses, 1 80
Wecklein, rejects Bacch. 286-297,
167
Wegener, Dr., on the Hymn to
Demeter, 56
Wilmans, Dr. , on Dio Cassius, 38
XENOPHON, his record of military
medicine, 225. Anab. I. ii. 13,
92. Mem. III. iii. 12, 376 ;
IV. ii. 8 ff. , 225
ZENODOTUS, on Odyssey text, 61
Ziegler, on Cyprus, 308, 327
Zonaras, 37
422
INDEX
II. GENERAL INDEX
ABONOTICHUS, serpent impostures of
Alexander of, 254
Abraham, statue of, in Lararium of
Severus, 265
Academy, Cicero proposes a gate
for the, 1 88
Acamantis, Philonides named
Cyprus, 274
Acamas, a mountain of Cyprus and
of Salamis, 187, 344, JS 2 f-
Acanthus-leaf, on the capitals of the
Epidaurian Tholos, 252
Accad, Aphrodite came from un
known, 303
Accounts, inscriptions concerning,
found at Eleusis and Delos, 195,
207, 387
Achilles, the Apolline ideal and, 9 ;
fire-baptism of, 64 ; Chiron s pupil,
232
Acropolis (Athenian), chamber on,
devoted to remains of Aesculapian
temple, 249
Acropolis (Eleusinian), 187, 199,
203 f.
Acta publica, consulted by Dio
Cassius, 38
Actor, inspiration of, by Dionysus,
117
Adonis, 291 f.
Aee tes, 231
Aegae, Apollonius and Maximus at
the temple of Aesculapius at, 255,
257*.
Aegean, Archilochus the poet of
the, 365 ; festivals of the, 389 ;
Venetians and Greeks in the, 328,
389 ; Delian centre of the, 387 ;
Archipelago, a name of the, 397
Aegina, 187, 223
Aegipan, 98-100
Aegyptos, river, Nysa close to, 163 f.
Aelian, ridiculous credulity of, 230
Aeneas, virtues of, 39 ; Chiron s
pupil, 232
Aeolus, housed on Tenos, 380
Aeschylus, the record of the cou-
vade and, 169-171 \ Dionysus the
tutelary god of, 81
Aesculapius, 15, 220, 222, 231 f.,
235 f -&gt; 239 f., 242, 245, 255;
medicine and, 15, 220, 226, 234,
f. , 237 f. ; myth of, 15, 220 f.,
230 f., 232 f., 234 f., 244-246,
254, 256 ; other gods and, 15,
240, 242 f. ; Amphiaraus and, 232 ;
Aphrodite and, 270 f. ; Apollo
and, 15, 219 f. , 231, 239-242 ;
Apollonius of Tyana and, 220,
2 55&lt; 2 57 attendant divinities
and, 240 ] Demeter and, 194,
219 f., 270 f. ; Dionysus and,
194, 220 f. , 247 ; Persephone
and, 219 f. ; Serapis and, 254 ;
Zeus and, is, 21, 219 f. , 239 ;
worship of, 229 f. , 236, 238 i. , 243,
247, 249, 254,361 ; at Aegae, 255-
258 ; at Athens, 2, 5, 242, 248 f. ;
at Cos, 194 f., 221, 225 ; at Epi-
daurus, 2, 3, 219 f. , 220, 243-245,
248-254 among the Lapithae
and Phlegyae, 194 f. , 221, 233 f. ;
at and near Rome, 221, 234$, , 243,
254 ; in Thessaly, 194 f. , 221,
233*.
Agamemnon, 285, 293
Aganippe, 24
Agapenor, 285 f.
Agave, 137, 147, 150, 160-162
Agelastos petra, the, at Eleusis, 61 ,
207
Aglaurus, mother of Ceryx, 122
ayvr], used of Persephone, 48
Agriculture, in Cyprus, 281 ; know
ledge of, came from Demeter
through Triptolemus, 71 ; im-
INDEX
423
plements of, Cinyras invented,
294
Agrionia, 103
Aidoneus, 49 f. , 55 57, Z 7 8 &gt; 94
Alyafov Trt\ayos, corrupted into
Archipelago, J97 f.
Aiorai, 706
Aithousa, mother of Eleuther,
daughter of Alcyone and Poseidon,
etc., 779
Ajax, 46, 78
Alaric, 188, 265
Alban hills, 326
Albanians, May festivals of, 89
wasting of Eleusis by the, 188 f. ,
796
Alcaeus, 702
Alcamenes, statue of Aphrodite by,
270, 273
Alcibiades, 215
Alcmaeon, dissection of animals by
223
Alcmaeonidae, arraignment of, 124
Aletis, song in memory of Erigone
106, 115
Alexander, Bacchanals of the hous
of, 138 ; Dionysus and, 79 ; th
empire of, 44 f. ; the Emathia
conqueror, 79
Alexander, of Abonotichus, 254
263
Alexandria, Caesareum at, 13 f.
Alexandrine doctors, Daremberg
list of, 279 ; sailors, worship o
Caesar eTri/Sar^ptos by, 14
Ali Pasha, of Janina, 268
Alliance, the Eleusinian, of divinitie
77, 776, 277, 276
Alpheius, 163
Amadis de Gaule, anatomy of, com
pared to Homer s, 228
Amathus, a Phoenician foundatio
281, 291 f.
Amathusia, Xenagoras called Cypru
274
Amazons, 38, 249
American excavation at Icaria, 10
114
Amphiaraus, a Boeotian Aesculap
and a pupil of Chiron, shrine at
Oropus of, 232
mphictyon, in Dionysus -legend,
7/9
mphipolis, Phyllis on the shore
near, 65
mphipolitans, deified Brasidas,
40 f.
nacreon, sang under inspiration of
wine, 102
natomy, Homer s clear notions of,
227-230 ; origin of, 234, 237 ;
heroic interest in, 227 ; influence
of Homer in, 229
naxagoras, loftier teachings of, in
the Bacchanals, 138
ndania, competition with Celeae
and Eleusis of, 65
Androclus, son of Codrus, 122
Andros, on the way to Delos, 376 ;
among the Bahamas, J97
Anemones, on the Tholos of Poly-
cletus, 251
\nimism, 27
Anthesteria, at Athens, 130 f.
Anthesterion, month of the Lesser
Mysteries, 208
\nthropology, scientific method in,
169 f.
-\nthroporraistes, dvdpuTroppa.l&lt;TTT]S,
or man wrecker, Dionysus sur
name, 100
Antigone, the, interpolation in,
i66f.
Antonines, the age of the, an age of
valetudinarians, 235
Antony, Mark, as Caesar s flamen,
38 ; masquerade of, as Dionysus,
79
Anubis and Apollo at Delos, 402
Apamea, 14
Aphrodite, 2, 5 ; nature of, 273 ,
powers of, 277 ; came from every
where, 272 ; a nature goddess,
271, 273; a jealous power, 273; a
restraining power, 300 ; bore a
sword, 46, 270, 273 ; a consoling
power, 277, 298, 303 ; a goddess
of the dead, 292, 309 f. ; sur-
424
INDEX
named Sosandra, 271, 298, 303
ancient influence of, 277, 303 f.
modern views about the origin of
315 ; had a strain neither Greek
nor Phoenician, 282, 324 ; cam&lt;
from Accad, 303 ; worship of, in
the East, 273 f., 293, 297 f.
Greek influences never quite pre
vailed with, 271-273, 297, 317
Aphrodite, of the Greeks, 270-273
284, 297 f. , 303 f. , 315 f. , 319
of the Hittites, 315, 320 f. ; o
the Phoenicians, 273 f. , 282, 284
286, 297 f. , 303, 31 5, 318, 320,
323
of the poets. Euripides on,
298-300 ; Homer on, 298 f. ,
304, 317 f. ; Pindar on, 299 f.
Aphrodite s associates. Adonis and,
291 ; Aesculapius and, 270 f.
Apollo and, 271, 379, 382, 399-
403; Ariadne and, 400 f. ; Cybele
and, 21, 303 ; Demeter and,
21, 69, 303 ; Dionysus and, 148,
273, 3io
sanctuaries (Greek). At
Athens, 270 f. ; at Cythera,
285 f. , 323 ; at Delos, ^79, 382,
399, 403 ; towards Eleusis, 218,
271, 296 f. , 304, 314 ; at Psophis
and Tegea, 285 f. , 323
sanctuaries (Cypriote).
53. 2 74&gt; 2 $S&lt; 287, 296, 317,
321 f. ; at Old Paphos, 272, 279,
292
Zerynthian sanctuary, 345 f.
Apolline perfection, Apollonius of
Tyana and, 220
Apollo, 5, 8, 9, 14 f., 17 f. , 24, 28-
30, 33 f., 169-171, 219, 242, 264,
366-369, 371 f.
Apollo s associates. Aesculapius,
220, 240-242 ; Aphrodite, 271,
300 ; Ares, 372 ; Artemis, 355,
367 ; Athena, 218 ; Augustus,
14 ; Bacchus, 25 ; Coronis, 245 ;
Daphne, 368 ; Demeter, 75-9,
218 ; Diana, 150 ; Dionysus, 21,
30 f. , 34, 36, Sf, 102, 104, 159,
162, 368 ; Eleuther, 119 f. ; Har-
pocrates, 401 f. ; Hecate, 159 ;
Heracles, 371 f. ; Hermes, 372 ;
Horus, 401 f. ; Marpessa, 368 ;
the Muses, 102, 104, 159 ; Nero,
114 ; Poseidon, 372 ; Proserpina,
r 59 Pythagoras, 219 ; Zagreus,
128 ; Zeus, 26, 369
Apollo s sanctuaries. At Bassae,
372 ; at Curium, 345 f. ; on Mt.
Cynortion, 246 ; at Daphne,
218 ; at Delos, 2, 5, 35, 201,
360-363, 370, 372, 375, 37^-380,
382, 384-389, 394, 401 f. ; at
Delphi, 17, 26, 29, 33-36, 370,
372 ; at Icaria, 102, 104 ; at
Marathon, 104 ; on Parnassus,
104
story, no, 128, 219, 231,
239, 294, 356-350, 369, 372,
379. 382, 391, 393, 399
Apollonia, celebrated during Delian
independence, 374, 386-389
Apollonius means one under Apollo s
guidance, 219 ; seven Alexandrine
doctors named, 219
Apollonius of Tyana, reasons for
the discredit of, 258 f. , 261 f. ;
important facts concerning, 220,
255, 257, 261, 263-266 ; relation
to Christians and Christianity of,
258, 260 f., 263 f.
Appius, Claudius Pulcher, gate of,
at Eleusis, 188, 190
Arabian strain of Dionysus, 168
Araby the blest worships Dionysos,
140
Arcadia, temples of Aphrodite in
285 f.
Arcadian forms in Cypriote, 280 ;
legends of Demeter Erinys and
her daughter Persephone A^o"-
Troiva, 48
Arcadians, the, when and whence
they entered Cyprus, 280
Archaeological Society, Greek, i f.
Archaeology, 7
Archedemus, his Athenian grinders,
214
INDEX
425
Archelaus, wild religion at the cour
of, 137
Archilochus, the poet of the Aegean
365 ; and Apollo, j66 ; and
Paros, 365
Archipelago, a corruption of Aiyaiov
irtXayos, 397 f.
Archipelago, Athens in close com
munion with the islands of, 81
the carnival of, and the Delia and
Apollonia, 388 f. ; tales of Diony
sus in, ii f ; Thracians in earliest
days controlled the, 80 ; seat of
Thracian power in, was Naxos,
80
Archon, marriage of Dionysus with
the wife of king, 130 f.
Arcturus-Icarius, no
Ares, Apollo boxed with, 372
Aresthanos found Aesculapius on
Mt. Titthion, 244 f.
Argive account of Eubouleus-Diony-
sus, 176
Argolis, Polycletus of, his two Epi-
daurian masterpieces, 246
Ariadne, 130, 379, 401 ; Aphrodite
and, 400 f. ; Daedalus and, 399 ;
Demeter and, 62; Dionysus and,
130 ; Persephone and, 62 \ Thes
eus and, at Delos, 382
Arician Grove, picturesque but com
paratively unimportant rites of,
2 7
Aristaeus, the giver of honey, reared
Dionysus, 143
Aristophanes, 68, 212-216 ; Apollo
and, 28 ; Dionysus and, 81 ;
Eleusinia and, 212-216
Aristotle on Dithyrambs and
Tragedy, 116 ; corroborates the
Parian Marble, 132
Art, Delian and Metapontine, 383
Artemis, 245, jjj f. , 367, 399 ; at
Delos, 336, 379, 385 ; at Eleusis,
189 f. ; at Epidaurus, 230
Arts, Pygmalion and Cinyras origin
ated the useful, 294
Ascalon, Evenus of, 108
Asclepieion at Athens, 2
Ascoliasmos, at Dionysiac festivals,
origin of, 108
Ashdod, Dagon at, and Eastern
Aphrodite, 297 f.
Ashtaroth and Cypris - Aphrodite
differentiated, 320 f.
Asia, Central, 12
Asia Minor, i, 2 ; attempt to derive
Aphrodite from, 271 f., 320,
322 ; Athenians in, 122, 132 ;
contributions from, to the myth
of Cinyras, 293, 295 ; Cnidian
sanctuary in, 70 ; north Cyprus,
an extract from, 277 ; Maenads
followed Dionysus from, 141 ;
Lenaeon, a month name of, 132 ;
land of Phrygian flute and Lydian
airs, 294 ; Sporades lie near,
392 ; Taurus range and north
range of Cyprus, 273 ; Thrace of,
84
, ten in Asia, 44
, apxiepevs rrjs, 43
Aspelia, Xenagoras called Cyprus,
274
Assumption, the, and the bringing of
Semele to Olympus, 777
Assurbanipal, Sardanapalus, poem
on Ishtar found in library of, 300
Assyria, Aphrodite ultimately from,
272 ; Cinyras, king of, 291
Assyrian and Greek strains in Aphro
dite, 298 ; idea of Ishtar, 273,
303 ; stranger, Phoenician wine
trade and Dionysus the, 165 ,
rosettes an inheritance from, 2jf
Astarte - Aschera, and Aphrodite,
277
Asteria and Ortygia, barren legend
of, 358
Astronomy, of Icarian story, no f. ;
in a Delian legend, 358
Astynomus, called Cyprus Crypton
and Colinia, 274
Atargatis, worship of, added to that
of the Syrian goddess at Delos,
403
Athena, appeared to Alaric and
saved Athens, 263
426
INDEX
Athena, frequent mention of, at
Citium, 322 ; Cynthia, Delian
temple of, 402 ; and Demeter,
shared Apollo s temple at Daphne,
218
Athene Sotera, Pisistratus and, 126 ;
and the heart of Zagreus, 181
Athenian shrine of Rome and
Augustus on the Acropolis, 40 ;
temple of Aesculapius next the
Acropolis (inscription), 241 ;
and Argive account of Eubouleus-
Dionysus, 176 ; Confederacy, 12 ;
religion, became the same with
Attic, 122 f .
Athenian worship, at Delos (a) archi
tecture, 386, (b] festivals, 374-381,
(c) legends, 382, 399 i. ; at Eleusis,
122, 124, 207-218
Athenian worship of Dionysus, 123,
134 ; derivation of, 81, 130,
137, 162 \ festivals of, 128-132,
!34
Athenian theatre of Dionysus, 114,
ng
Athenians in Asia Minor, 122, 132 ;
Venetians and, 131, 328
Athens typically free, n ; the Archi
pelago and, 81 ; Cecrops at, 64 ;
commercial jealousy of, 363 ;
Democedes at, 224 \ Eleusinion
at, 124, 207 ; Eleusis and, 122,
208 ; Eleutherae and, 118 f. ;
Epimenides at, 124 Icarian
influences at, 114, 117, 129, 132 ;
religious innovations at, 129 f. ;
worship of Aphrodite at, 270 ;
worship of Apollo (Delian) at,
362 f. , 376 f. , 386 f. ; worship of
Apollo (Delphian) at, 34; worship
of Aesculapius at, 219, 222, 241,
248 f. , 256 ; worship of Demeter
and the Eleusinian divinities at,
77, 118, 122, 124, 207-211, 215-
217 , worship of Dionysus at, 36,
77, 80 f., 89 f., II7-IIO,, 121 f. ,
123, 129-131, fjj-sjj
Athens and Venice, religions con
trasted, 131
Atlas, father of Aithousa s mother
Alcyone, 119
Atthis, Adonis closely connected
with, 291, 322
Attic Demeter legend, 60 ; Diony
sus legend and worship, 34, 104
f. , 113, 143 ; confederation, 60 ;
religion, 122 f. , 129 f. , 218 ; sense
of measure, 34, 104 f. , 113 ;
tragedy, 117
Attica, the Bacchanals called the
Passion Play of, 137 ; song of Bac
chanals and winter festivals of,
156 , country demes of, and
Dionysus, 34 \ Demeter and
Dionysus came to, 105 ; Euripides
wrote for Greece as well as for,
143 ; exclusiveness of local reli
gions in, 122 f. ; Icaria the Pieria
of, in ; belief in Pisistratus of
countrymen of, 126 ; political
and religious fusion of, 122 ; early
influence of Thracians on, in \
beautiful Triptolemus myth of,
71
Atticus, lukewarm about building in
Academy, 188, 190
Aufidus, bull-shaped, 95
Augustales, in Italy, Sicily, Gaul,
Spain, etc., 43
Augustalia, local celebrations analo
gous to, 43 f.
Augustan poets, imperial religion
and the, 38
Augusti, oaths In acta divi, 43
Augustin, St., commends self-con
trol of Apollonius, 264
Augustus, deification of genius of,
38 ; worshipped as AXe^/ca/cos,
Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon, 14 ;
Egyptian style of, 14 ; Julius
Caesar and, 37 ; masquerading
scheme of, 37 f . ; Rome and wor
ship of, 40 ; wished to govern not
to reign, 37 ; worship of, Rome
and, 45; worshipped by "circum
locution," 40 ; and temples for
imperial worship, 38 , temple at
Jerusalem and, 8
INDEX
427
Aurelian, vision by, of Apollonius,
26 S
Autonoe, on Cithaeron, 75-0
Autopsy of the Greater Mysteries,
209
Axius, Dionysus crosses the, 757
BABYLON, Aphrodite-Mylitta at, 303
Bacchanal, Apollo a prophet, 30
Bacchanalian revels, Euripides
understanding of, fjo f. ; victory,
184 1
Bacchanals of everyday life, 7/2,
138 ; full of Dionysus, 136 ; com
parison of, with Pans, 99 f. ;
in the Thiasos, 100 ; Thebes
the mother of, 133 ; Thracian
originals of, 97
Bacchanals, The, of Euripides, pre
figures future and sums up the
past, 138 ; music of, 144 ; called
the Passion Play of Attica, 7J7 ;
many aspects of, 136 f. , 7jj ;
relation of, to Dionysus, (a) its
scene is full of Dionysus, 7J9 f.,
(b} it presents in full the Bacchic
cult, 757, (c) a gospel of Dionysus,
136, (d) fullest presentation of
Dionysus, 727, (e) contains proto-
Thracian Dionysus and teachings
of philosophy, 138 ; all characters
in, are prophets of Dionysus, 156
f. ; stand for Dionysus, 7J9 ;
Dionysus not the sole representa
tive of the god in, 7j&gt;9, i^S
analysis of the action of, 140-
143, 145-160, 162 ; details of,
(a) written in Macedonia, 137,
(b) lines of, preserved in Christus
Pattens, 139 ; (c) Milton s emen
dation of, 146, (d) interpolation
in, 766 f. ; (e) Cadmus in, 140,
145-147 f. , (/) Tiresias in, 145
Baccheios, Dionysus, at Corinth, 759
Bacchic power, wine represented the
sterner as well as the more charm
ing side of, 97
cult, presented in full by the
Bacchanals, 757
Bacchic worship, stage of, investi
gated by Americans, 104 , re
verence for Cybele in, 7^7; the
wanton ferule in, 142 ; ivy and
oak for, 142
dance, its graceful undulations
and fitful variations, 707, 146
images at Corinth of Pentheus
tree, 150
instruments, mention of, 143
madness, the method of, 145
Bacchus, Homeric notion of, 77 ;
dance of, 142 ; lover of laurel,
30 ; torches of, 247 ; religious
consolation of, 135
Bactrian forts, Dionysus worshipped
at, 140
Baetylus, on Mt. Cynthus, 386
Daffo olim Paphos, 324
Balkan Peninsula, 85, 89
Bank, the Delian shrine a, 387
Baptism, analogy of, to Lesser Mys
teries, 209
/3dp/3apoj, Meursius makes a river of
adjective, 353 f.
Barnabas, St. , in Cyprus, 290
fo, the dpxuv, with four ^TTI-
administered cult of
Athens and Eleusis, 208
Basilissa, marriage of Dionysus with,
130 f.
Basque country, persistence of cou-
vade in the, 770
Bas-relief of Dionysus and Icarius,
106
Bassae, temple of Apollo at, 204,
206, 372
Bassarids of Dionysus, 79, 97. See
Maenads.
Bavarian killing of Pfingstl, 159
Beans, Cyamites the giver of, and
the Mystae, 277 ; excluded from
Demeter s sanctuary at Eleusis,
277 f. ; horror of, felt by Pytha
goreans, 218
Bentley, abandoned edition of Apol
lonius, 262
Bermius, rose gardens on flanks of,
9 2
428
INDEX
Birth, forbidden on Delos, 360 \
principle of second, justifies
Orestes, 169 f.
Birth-legend of Aesculapius, 75-,
233, 245 ; of Aphrodite, 271,
284, 2 9 6,3T 7 f.,Js6-3S9&gt; 399 &gt;
of Dionysus, 128, 149, 165, 168-
173
Birthday -festival of Apollo and
Dionysus flower feast, 372
Bishop, functions of, analogous to
those of Ao-tdpx^s, 44
Bi0wid/&gt;x?7S, 44
Blizzard, the most ancient record of
a, 113
Bocalia, an alternative name for
Bocarus, 345 f.
Bocarus, a Salaminian river -name
wrongly connected with Cyprus,
324 f. , 344 347&gt; 352-354
Body, mind cured through, 235
Boedromion, month of the Greater
Mysteries, 208
Boeotia, Amphiaraus the Aescula
pius of, 232 ; Eleutherae on Attic
borders of, 118 ; Lenaeon in, 112,
132 ; early Thracians in various
parts of, 80
Boeotian festival of Agrionia, con
nection of Dionysus and Muses
in, 103
Boeotians organised a Delian festi
val, 363
Bondholders, the Turkish, and
modern Cyprus, 278
Bootes-Icarius as vindemiator, ITT ;
Icarius and his wain become,
no
Bordone, identifies Troodos and
Olympus, 329
Botticelli and spirit of mystery at
Eleusis, 182 ; illustrations of
Dante by, 331
Brasidas, deified by Amphipolitans,
40 f.
Brenzone, account of sack of Nicosia
by, 332 i. ; reproduces Procacci on
Troodos-Olympus, 334
Bricks, devised by Cinyras, 2()4 ;
transport of, from Athens to
Eleusis, 207
Bridge, jibes at, in procession of
Mystae, 214, 217
Brightness, elements of Dionysus
coupled with swift, 102
British Museum, Demotic stelae in, 14
Bromius, wine gift of, 109 ; mystic
maids sealed for service of, 87
Brotherhood of Dionysus and Apollo,
3i
Brumalia, Roman and Thracian
festival of, 86-88, 112. See
Rosalia
Bucolion, scene of marriage of
Dionysus, 13 T
Bull, represents water, 95 ; Dionysus
shaped as a, 95
Bulls, the Delian Hall of, 400
Bumna, a modern name for the
Bocarus, 347
Bustrone, calls Troodos Lambadista
or Chionodes, 341
Butes, leader of the early Thracian
migration to the Aegean, 80
Byblus, Aphrodite worshipped at,
as a cone, 293 ; Cinyras, a founder
priest and king at, 293
Byzantium, Cyprus under rule of,
278 f.
CABIRION, the Delian, and the The-
ban, 402
Cadmus, the Bacchanals of Euri
pides and, 140, 145-147 ; the
Dionysus-legend and, y&lt;5z f., 164
Caesar, Julius, 14, 37
Caesarea-by-the sea, 14
Caesareum at Alexandria, the, 13-15
Calamis, statue of Aphrodite Sosan-
dra by, 299
Calendar, juggle with, at Athens for
initiation of Demetrius, 209
Callias at the Delia, 376
Callichorus, the well where Demeter
sorrowed, 207
Canicula-Maera, no
Capitoline Museum, bust of Virgil
in, K)5
INDEX
429
Cappadocian, Apollonius the, sneered
at by Dio Cassius, 261
Caracalla, coins of, 44 ; son of
Julia Domna, 264 ; partiality for
Apollonius of Tyana, 261, 263
Caramania, anciently invaded by
Thracians, 280 ; mountains of,
376
Caratheodori, two cousins, both
fathers of, were doctors, 268
Carinondas and Apollonius, magi
cians, 262
Carnival - time in the Archipelago
and the Delia and Apollonia,
Carthage, Aphrodite-Ashtaroth at,
303
Castalia, streams of, 23, 35, 133
Caste, ii
Castor, a pupil of Chiron, 232
Cavafy, Dr., at St. George s Hos
pital, 269
Cavaliere di San Marco, gift of
Meursius MS. Cyprus gained his
son the title of, jjo
Cave at Icaria, 709
Cave-like arches at Eleusis, 797
Cave -temple of Apollo on Delos,
sssi
Caves, frequency of, in Cyprus, 289
Cecrops, Cychreus as, 345 ; Eleusis
as, 64 \ Pandion, the fifth since,
105
Celeae, Eleusinian Demeter-legend
and, 64 f., 7 05
Celeus and Eleusin, 61, 64 f. ; a
hero at Celeae, 63 ; an interloper
at Eleusis, 6j ; Demeter s visit to,
6j, 68, 105 ; discrowned by Ovid,
77 ; Icarius contrasted with, loj ;
the sons of, 62 f. ; the daughters
of, &lt;5j, 122, 175
Centaurs, 138, 231, 249
Central Museum at Athens, Epidaur-
ian victories in, 249
Ceos, on the way from Athens to
Delos, 376
Cephissus, jibes at bridge over, 214,
217
Cerastis, Xenagoras, called Cyprus,
274
Ceres, the Roman, jo
Cerynia, the only centre of life in
North Cyprus, 277
Ceryx, son of Hermes, successor to
Eumolpus, 122
Cestus of Aphrodite, borrowed by
Hera, .299
Chalcidice, Greeks of, deified Fla-
mininus, 40
Chastity and Cypris, 149-153
Children, growth of, linked to growth
in the field, jj ; surviving Europ
ean customs about, jj
Chinese, use of play-actors masks
by, 172
Chios, not of Cyclades or Sporades,
393
Chiotes, for
Chiron, the character of, 231 ; Aes
culapius, reared by, 246 ; loves
of Apollo and, 369 ; pupils of,
232
Chiti (Citium), Podocatharo estate
of, 337 f. ; Procacci s account of,
337
Chittim, Cyprus named, 274 ; Tar-
shish and, in Isaiah, 281
Chivalry, of Apollo in love, 368 f. ;
Homeric, scorned Dionysus, 78
Cholargia, Xenocles of, at Eleusis,
797
Choruses, tragic, at Sicyon, 7/j
Christ, deification of emperors led to
the imitation of, 265 ; statue of,
in the Lararium of Severus, 263
Christian art, spirit of ancient mys
teries in, 182
Christian birth-legends, compared
with the Delian story, jj6
building at Delos, 379
opponents took trouble to
understand Apollonius, 263
ritual, 4
Christian, mimic fight between Turk
and, 90
Christianity, j, 5, 6, fj f. , 79 ;
Paganism and, 44 f. , 2jS, 260,
43
INDEX
266 ; in Thrace, 84, 88 ; the
Dionysus-worship of the Baccha
nals and, 138
Christians, Apollonius respected by,
261 ; ransomed from Turks, 339
Christopoulos, a lyric poet, studied
medicine at Buda, 268
Chrysopator, epithet of Dionysus, 92
Chrysopolitissa, the holy, and Aphro
dite Paphia, 304
Church, the hall at Eleusis a, 189
Church universal, n, 15
Churches, ruins of, in Cyprus, 283
Cicero, his mocking allusion to
Caesar s divine honours, 37 ; pro
poses a building like the gate of
Appius, 188-190
Cilicia, mountains of, 276
Cimon, Hall of, at Eleusis, 199, 204
Cinnamon tree, the, and Nysa, 164 f.
Cinyradae.the, at Paphos, 291
Cinyras, legend of, 291-295 ; the
Paphian south wing is perhaps the
tomb of, 309, 314
Circe had knowledge of miraculous
drugs, 23T
Cithaeron, Mount, 118 ; Dionysus-
legend and, 141, 147, -fjo, zjj f. ,
158 \ false connection with
Cythera of, 286 ; never connected
with Aphrodite, 286
Citium, the Roman form for Chit-
tim, 281 ; Athena, not Aphrodite,
mentioned at, 322 ; Phoenician
remains at, 282, 32 1\ Podocathari
estate at, 337
Citizenship, political, invented by
Greece, 12
Clairvoyance of Apollonius in Dio
and Philostratus, 261
Clan and commonwealth, n
Classicists, romanticists compared
with, yjo
Clemency of Augustus, worship of,
40
Cleomenes, devastation of Eleusinian
sanctuary by, 198, 216
Clisthenes, effect of Sicyonian
choruses on, 115
Clodones, the, are Thracian originals
of Bacchants, 97
Clytemnestra, murder of, and the
couvade, 169, 170 ; struggle of, for
Iphigenia and the couvade, 171
Cnidus, i, j, 59 f., 70, 194, 195
Cnossus, Epimenides from district
of, 124
oan practice of medicine, work on,
attributed to Hippocrates, 225 ;
school and early medicine, 234
Cock, debt of Socrates and Crito to
Aesculapius, 239
Codrus, father of Androclus, 122
Coins, head of Apollonius on, 265
Colettis, the Prime Minister, was a
doctor, 268
Colontas, Demeter and, 776
Colos, Garin du, at Colossi, 288
Colossi, name and history of, 287 f.
Colossus of Naxians at Delos, 380 ;
of Rhodes and the Cypriote
Colossi, 287 f.
Columbus of a new world, Thespis
the, 116
Comedies, at Athenian festivals, 134
Comedy, Icaria the cradle of, in,
113, 117 ; Susarion invited to
Icaria with the first, 114 f. ; tra
gedy and, began together, 117
Commanderia and Madeira wines,
288
Commanders, Knights, the, at
Colossi, 287
Commandery at Colossi, 288
Commandment, Demeter s, 72
Commercial spirit of Delia after
second revival, 375
Commonwealth and clan, u
Concord, of Dionysus and Apollo,
104
Cone, worship of Aphrodite as a, at
Byblus and Paphos, 293, 386
Confirmation, analogy of, to the
Greater Mysteries, 209
Conon and Evagoras used forests of
Cyprus, 308
Contradictions, in the pose and look
of Demeter and Persephone, 73 ;
INDEX
inherent in Dionysus, 78 f., 113,
rj6
Coray, a doctor at Montpellier, 268
Corfu, May festival at, 89
Corinth, Aphrodite at, 27 f ; Bacchic
images of Pentheus wood at, 759
Corinthian capital, the earliest
known, 252
Corn, contrasted with wine and the
vine, 707 ; lady, the, of, jo ; mother
of, or Kornmutter, 470
Coroebus, a builder of the temple at
Eleusis, 797
Coronelli calls the Troodos Olympus,
343
Coronis, daughter of Thessalian
Phlegyas, 2jj, 244 f. , 367
Corybantes, at birth of Zeus-Diony
sus, 99, 142 f.
Corycian, cave, 133 ; Dionysus on
the heights, 757
Cos, inscriptions at, 237 ; coming of
Aesculapius to, 221 ; date of
Aesculapian foundation of, 243 ;
Ptolemy and, likened to Apollo
and Delos, 394
temple of Aesculapius at, the
school of Hippocrates, 225
Cothonea, given for Metanira, 6j
Couclia, modern name of Old
Paphos, 289 ; description of the
village of, 296 ; Tschiflik at,
290 ; further excavations at, de
sirable, 314
Courage, Homeric conception of, 78
Couvade, Apollo in the Eumenides
and, 769 ^ l ^ e anc ^ Clytem-
nestra s death, 769 f. ; Dionysus
second birth and, 168-170 ; the,
and Dionysus love for Semele,
769 ; Greek transformation of
problem of, to beauty, 777 ; sur
vival of, to-day in Spain and
France, 770 ; struggle for Iphi-
genia and the, 777 ; Zamacola on
the, 770
Couvocles, old French for Couclia,
modern name of Old Paphos, 296
Cowardice, the, of Dionysus, per
sonified by Satyrs, 99 ; grotesque-
ness as of, attached to Dionysus,
78
Crane dance, legend of, at Athens
and Delos, 400
Creed, 6 f., 16, 18, fjj
retan birth of Epimenides, effect
of, 7^7 ; legends, Dionysus in,
81, 7J9, 142
rete, Aphrodite in, 277 ; Ariadne
came from, 62 ; Curetes from, 97 ;
Demeter-worship in, 61 f. ; lasion
in, 62 ; Rhea and Cybele in, 143 ;
Zeus of, a Dionysus, 142
Crissaean plain, 23
Crito, debt of a cock to Aescula
pius, 2J9
Croce, Mount St., wrongly identi
fied with Olympus of Cyprus, J2j ;
is probably the ancient Aous,
352
Cronos, Aphrodite on the Olympian
hill of, 277 ; Demeter s father, jo
Cross of the penitent thief, discovery
of, in Cyprus, 275- ; tempests
stilled by a nail of the true, 275
Croton, Aesculapius probably not
worshipped at, 225 f. ; Alcmaeon
the Pythagorean of, 223 ; Demo-
cedes came from, 223 \ renown of
its school of medicine, 223 ; the
centre of Pythagoreanism, 223
Cruelty, in Thracian Dionysus-wor
ship, 700
Cruz, Santa, Cal. , and Cape Curias,
288
Crypton, Astynomus, called Cyprus,
274
Cuneiform, version from the, JO7
Curetes, are the Satyrs of Crete, 9^,
97, 142 f.
Curias, cape, and Santa Cruz, Cal. ,
288 ; Strabo s account of coast
west of cape, 325
Curium, Apollo i/XdrTjs at, 345 f.
Customs, justice done by Euripides
to, 757 ; variety of local, con
nected with Eleusinian procession,
218
432
INDEX
Cyamites, the Mystae and, 2/7
Cybele, Bacchic worship of, 141 ;
Corybantes of, 97 ; Demeter and
Rhea combined with, 401 f. ; one
of eight Eleusinian gods, 178 ;
Rhea acts in Crete as, 143
Cychreus (Salaminian), Cecrops
Eleusis and, 64, 345 f.
Cyclades, influence on Athens of,
8 1 ; Delos and the, 359, j62,
364 f. , 387 ; history of the name,
391-398 \ the Holy Islands called,
370
Cyclopean sanctuary at Eleusis,
200 f.
Cyclops, Apollo s expiation for slay
ing the, 37 i
Cycnias, a mountain of Tenos, 380
Cyllene, seen from Eleusis, 187
Cylon avenged, 124
Cy Ion s failure the people s victory,
122
Cynortion, mountain sacred to
Apollo, 246
Cynthian Cabirion at Delos, 402 ;
cave-temple of Apollo, 385 f. ;
precinct of foreign gods became
foreign soil to Apollo, 402
Cynthus, j6j ; temple to Zeus
Cynthius and Athena Cynthia on
Mount, 402 ; altar of horns
brought by Artemis from, 384 f.
Cyprians knew that Aphrodite was
from the East, 273
Cypriote agriculture, Lang and
Fourcade on, 281 ; characters,
who used them ? 280, 321 ; pea
santry, Lang s sympathy for,
280 i.
Cypris-Aphrodite and Ashtaroth dif
ferentiated, 320 ; not of Greek
birth, 318
Cypris and chastity, ijo f. , 153 ;
Homer mentions Aphrodite as,
284, 316 ; Pontia, Phaedra s
name for Aphrodite, 297
Cyprogeneia, Aphrodite s epithet, 296
Cyprus, 2 ; Aphrodite s isle is, 153,
274, 287 ; in ancient times, 272,
274, 278, 280, 284, 292, 294,
32r f. ; description of, 275-277,
288 f., 308, 328 ; general history
of, -276-280 ; in medieval times,
27S&gt; 2 78&gt; 326-328, sjs-jjs, 342 ,
in modern times, 272, 27^, 278 f.,
288
Cyrene and Apollo, 300, 369
Cythera, Aphrodite on, 277, 286 f.,
296, 317 ; confused withCithaeron
and Cythrea, 286 ; Phoenicians
on, 286, 323
Cythnos on the way to Delos, 376
Cythrea of Cyprus, confusion of,
with Cythera, 286
DAEDALUS, Delian image of Aphro
dite by, J79, J99
Daeira, surname of Persephone at
Eleusis, 48
Dagon at Ashdod and Eastern Aph
rodite, 297 f.
Daimon, the mystical, of early Eleusis,
and Dionysus - Zagreus-Iacchos,
*74
Daisy, the Greek, on capitals of the
Tholos, 252
Dalin (Idalium), earthquake at, 290
Damaschino, Dr., professor in the
Faculty of Paris, 269
Damasias, Mr. Kenyon s note on,
132
Damigeron and Apollonius, sor
cerers, 262
Damis the Ninivite, travellers tales
of, 257-259 ; notes of, given to
Philostratus by Julia, 260
Dance, Apollo and the, 29 ; the
Archipelago and the, 388 ; Apollo
and Dionysus, two gods of the,
104 ; Dionysus and the, 06, loj,
133, 142, 146 f. , 213 ; of Diony
sus on Parnassus, 133, 149 ; of
Silenus, 95 ; represented Eleu
sinian and Icarian legends,
107
Dante, Apollo invoked, 24 f. ; Botti
celli s illustrations of, 331 ; idea
of Parnassus in, /// ; Orphic
INDEX
433
ideas in, 25 ; remembers Lucan,
24
Daphnae on the Sacred Way, 218
Daphne and Erigone, myths of, 368
Dardanus and Apollonius as magi
cians, 262
Darius cured by Democedes, 224
Daulis, 80, in
Dead, Dionysus translated from the
world of the, 102 ; streams poured
by Odysseus for the, 97
Death, Aesculapius the awakener
from, 239, 245 ; Apollo the dealer
of, 366 , of Dionysus, 112 ; re
presented by Dionysus, 28 ; taint
of, mentioned in the Old Testa
ment, j6o ; Thracian idea of, 84
Decelea, fortification of, by Spartans,
215
Deification of emperors led to imita
tion of Christ, 265
Delian festivals of Apollo, 104, 363,
372-381, 386-389
Delians, exile and restoration of,
Jtj, 378
Deliastae, 376
Delion, the Marathonian, lo.f, 376
Delium, festival organised at, and
battle of, 363
Delos, 2, 9 ; description and general
history of, 361, 363,372-377, 379,
383, Sty, J$9. 394&lt; 4&lt;&gt;r I monu
ments at, 355, 371, 378-380, 384,
386 f. , 400 ; mythology of, 35,
350, 356-359, 37 f &gt; 379 3^2-384,
394, 399 f. i 403 ; ritual and wor
ship in general at, 255, 355, 360-
364, 370, 376, 378-382, 387
Delphi, description of, 22-24; known
details of monuments and worship
at, 21 f., 31-33) jfo; history and
mythology of, 22, 31-35, 119,
37 f ; oracle at, 26, 34-36, 81,
122,363, 370 f. ; revellers blocked
by snow above, 113 ; worship
and ritual at, 22, 29-33, 35, 364,
370, 384
Demaratus inquires about the Eleu-
sinia, 209 f.
Demeter, i, 4, j, 8, 17 ; association
and combination of, with other
gods, 21, 69, 73 f., 77, 107, 159,
174, 176, 178 f., 182-185, 208,
218-220, 273, 303, 401 f. ; char
acter and meaning of the divinity
of, 79 f.., 47, 51 L, 67-69, 71-74,
133, 180, 182, 185, 215, 303;
leading points in the myth of, 50,
55, 57 &gt;59 61-63, 66-68, 71 f.,
105, in, 119, 175 f., 185, 206 f. ,
215, 217, 303 ; development of
the worship and myth of, 46, 48 f. ,
51 f.,54,56, 60 f., 75, 77. 104,
in, i22i., 125 f., 163, 175 f.,
194, 221, 233 ; monuments of the
worship of, 70, 72 f., 189-196,
124, 271 ; processional song in
honour of, 213 ; Dionysus of the
Lesser Mysteries with, 125
Demetrius the Phalerean at Eleusis,
797
Demetrius Poliorcetes, violated the
degrees of Eleusinian initiation,
209
Democedes, 223 f. , 226, 234
Democracy, triumph of Dionysus
with, 122
Democratic reform of the greater
Dionysia, 134
Demophoon, legends of, 62-66, 94,
175 22 9
Demotic stelae from Memphis, 14
Dendrites, Dionysus as, 106, 159, 176
Dendrophoria, Thraco - Phrygian
annual custom, 759
"Denis, vive notre bon pere," old
French song, 779
Denmark, Meursius in, 348 i.
Deo, the Eleusinian, 133
Diana and Apollo, 150
Diaulos, at the Delia and Apollonia,
388
3tdw/xa of Eleusinian temple,
meaning of, 797, 203
Dicaeus, describes Eleusinia, 209 f.
Dido-Anna and Aphrodite, 272
Dili, Megale, the modern name of
Delos, 361
2 F
434
INDEX
Dio Cassius, trustworthiness of his
account of honours voted to Julius
Caesar, 37 f. ; inconsistently en
dorses clairvoyance of Apollonius,
261 f.
Diocles, summoned by departing
Demeter, 63
Diocletian s Insularum provincia in
cluded 53 islands called Cyclades,
393 ! Cyclades came to be called
Dodecanisia, ^97
Diogenia, daughter of Celeus (Pam-
phos), 63
Dione and Aphrodite, 272, 284,
jyj-f., 318 L
Dionysia, the City, are the Greater,
*35 ! foundation of the Greater,
f 3 2 &gt; I 34 ^ I the Anthesteria con
trasted with the Greater, 131 ;
Thucydides calls the Anthesteria
the older, i 31 ; the Lesser are the
Rural, 131 ; the Rural took shape
in Icaria, 113
Dionysiac customs, persistence in
Thrace of, 88
Dionysiaca, the, of Nonnus, JTJQ
Dionysodotos, Apollo, 31
Dionysus, i, 4, 5, 9, 15, 17 f. ; the
god of song and dance and tra
gedy, 29, 31, 75, 79, 86, 97, 102-
104, us, i iji *33&gt; sj6, 143 ; the
god of the nether-world, 29, 31,
34, 79, 97, 06 f., 112, 127, 132,
185,310 ; the god of the real world,
(a) in general, oo, 02, 102 f. ,
130, 140, 144, 217, (b] of trees
and vegetation, 82 f. , 106, 150,
(c) of various elements, parts, and
events in nature, 24, 02-06, 100,
102, 107, 133, 139 f. , 143, 145,
140, 152, 156, 158, 178 f. , 212 ;
attendants and others variously
possessed by, (a) inspiration and
possession by (generally con
sidered), 04, 97 f., 133, 136, j-jo,
141, 144, 155, 158 i.,(b) Bac
chanals possessed by, 11 2, 156 f . ,
(c) Bassarids possessed by, 79,
(d) Corybantes and Curetes at the
birth of, 142, (e) Graces led by,
104, 135, (/) Maenads possessed
by, 112, 141, 184 f. , (g} Midas
as, 79, 03, (h) the Muses and,
31, 06, 103 f., 135, (i) nymphs,
naiads, and waterfolk of, 04, (j)
Pans of, 99, (k] seasons of, 06,
(/) Satyrs and, 79, 99, (m) the
Thyades of, 133 ; the Saviour God
(of Eleutherae), 22, 34, 79, 118-
120, 133, 145, 150, 161 f. ; festi
vals of, and ritual in general, (a)
characteristics of festivals of, 4,
85, 89 f. , 106, 112 f. , 132, 134,
140, 372, (b) Thracian festivals
of, 86-00, (c) Athenian festivals
of, 113, 128-132, (d) Boeotian
festivals of, 103, (e) Icarian
country festivals of, 108, 112-114,
(f) Eleusinian rites of, 214, (g)
observances in honour of, 36, 140,
155 ; Thracian origin of, 22, 77,
79, 82, 84, 86-00, 02, 04, 06,
99 f., 103, 106, 113, 126, 138,
162, 164, 177 , 180, 104 ; Orphic
features in the myth of, 112, 125-
128, 156 L, 168-173, 177, 181 ;
other gods and, (a) Adonis as,
201, (b) Aesculapius and, 220 f.,
247, (c) Aphrodite and, 273,-
(d) Apollo and, 21 f. , 29, 31, 102,
104, 159, 162, 185, 372, (e)
Ariadne and, 130, 328, (/) Eleu
sinian Demeter and, 77, 107, 125,
174-176, 178 f. , 182-185, 208,
210, 212, (g) Hades of Eleusis
and, 176-178, [k] Persephone
and, 144, 178, (*) Plutus and,
08, (j) Zeus and, 22, 142 ; lead
ing points in the myth of, (a]
general, 34, 77, 101 f., 143, 158,
318, (b) birth-legends of, 81, in,
114, 142, 148, 163-165, 318,
(c) Attic legend of (i. ) early
Icarian legends of, 80, 105, in,
(ii. ) Semachidae legends of, 105,
(iii. ) Eleutheraean legends of,
118 f., (iv. ) later Attic story of,
INDEX
435
soj, rn, n 7, 779, 128, ij2,
(d) Eastern myth of, 02, 140 f. ,
W. 57. J6j-j6j, i68,(e)
Euboean legend of, 143, (/)
Theban legend of, 140 f. , 148,
777 ; development of the myth of,
8 r f., (a) from points outside
Greece, 34, 79, 81 f. , 83, 140 f. ,
163-165, 1 68 f., 233, (&lt;J) from
places outside of Athens, 34^ 104,
IT i, u8i., 121, 123, 139, 773-,
(c) progress to and in Athens, 34,
joi, 1 21 -i 23, 125 f., 130-132,
154, 175, (d] to its latter-day
shape, 2r f., 36, 79, 106,
143, 186 , characteristics of,
(A) violence, extremes, and con
tradictions in, (i.) contradictions
in general, 30, 78, 83, 85, 93,
10 1, 113, 115, 136, 144, 149,
156, (ii.) the pitiless and out
rageous god, 22, 79, 99-707-, 770,
128, 757, 759 f., (iii.) the
cowardly and crazed god, 77 f. ,
99, 779 ; (B) higher religious and
moral aspects of, (i. ) the elusive
mystery and truth of his being,
22, 20, 80, 05, 101-104, f 33 f-.
136, 148, 779 f., 183-185, 368,
(ii. ) Christian aspects of, 34, 79,
777, 134, 138, 145, 153-157,
(iii. ) Athenian perfections of, 80 f. ,
702, 70J, 77J, 777, 162, 2l8,
(iv. ) power of faith in, 20, 76 f.,
97, 1 08, 7JO f. , 133 f., 140 f.,
I 5 2 -i54&gt; i5&lt;&gt; f -
Diophantus of Sphettus, his prayer
to Aesculapius, 241
Dirce, Cadmus sowed dragon s teeth
near, 7./7 ; Achelous daughter,
invoked for Dionysus, 756
Dissection practised by Pythagorean
Alcmaeon at Croton, 223
Dithyrambic contests, tripod
awarded for prize in, 36
Dithyrambus, contradictions of
Dionysus mirrored in, 115 ; influ-
I^nce of, on Thespis and tragedy,
r/,- f.
Divine man, ideal of, evolved among
Greek gods, 20
Divinity of Aesculapius, Demeter,
and Dionysus, hardly recognised
by Homer, 233
Divus, implications of the use of, 43
Doctors (Greek), Homeric status of,
222, 226, 230 ; deference for
Apollo and Aesculapius of ancient,
220, 230, 234, 238 ; career of
Democedes as a public, 223 f. ;
modern status of, 222, 267-269
Dodecanisia, a name for many
Aegean islands, ^97
Dodona, 70 ; Aphrodite s origin at,
315 f. ; Dione was the Aphrodite
of, 318
Dog-star, Maera became the, 777
Doge, marriage of, with the Sea, 7J7
Dogs, the nocturnal touch of,
brought healing, 235 f. ; forbidden
at Delos, 360 ; frieze of, on Arte
mis temple at Epidaurus, 250
Dolichos, the, at the Delia and
Apollonia, 388
Domitian, Apollonius saw from
Ephesus the murder of, 261
Doric style, bad example of, in
Hadrian s gate at Eleusis, 790,
792 ; last extremity of, at Delos,
387 ; of the Tholos at Epidaurus,
250
Dotian plain, Demeter came south
from, to Attica and Cnidus, 793-
Draconus, promontory of Nicaria,
where Dionysus was born, 163
Drama, contrast of Greek with
Chinese and Japanese, 772
Dreams, circumstances attending,
and results gained by, in Aescula-
pian temples, 235 f. ; prayed to,
as the children of Apollo, 242 ;
porches in Aesculapian sanctuaries
for awaiting, 248
Drugs, Homeric knowledge of,
228 f. ; miraculous power of cer
tain, in Homer, 231 ; knowledge
possessed by Medea and Circe
from Aeetes of miraculous, 231 ;
436
INDEX
Chiron in relation to knowledge of,
232 ; Aesculapius and his sons
associated with miraculous, 231 ;
Herophilus called the hands of
the gods, 237 ; the sun -god is the
source of miraculous knowledge
of, 231, 237
Drunkards, Dionysus and brawls of
leering, 79
Dryads, the, and Dionysus, 06
Dyalos, Dionysus surnamed, 97
EAGLES, golden, at the Delphian
navel-stone, 31
Earth, Agave and Maenads are
angry powers of, 160 ; clung to
the Telesterion at Eleusis, 206 ;
Delphi the centre of, 32 ; king
dom of, in the heavens, 13 ; oracles
of, supplanted at Delphi, jj- ; Pen-
theus father s mother, 756, 158,
160 ; and Poseidon at Delphi,
372 ; stricken for woes of Dem-
eter-Cybele and Ishtar, 302 f.
Earthquake, Dionysus directs the,
100, 144, 158 ; Maenads as the
many - handed, 143, 159 f - ,
earthquakes in Cyprus, at Dalin
(Idalium) and Old Paphos, 290
East, gods from the, 77 ; Aphrodite
from the, 273 ; Dionysus en
tangled with, in Euboea, Nicaria,
and Naxos, 163 ; second birth of
Dionysus connected with, 164
Eastern pedigree of Aphrodite and
Cinyras, 2O,r ; uncleanliness of
Aphrodite, 297 ; affinities of
Adonis can be overstated, 201
Echion the Earth-sprung, Pentheus
father, 147, 156, 158
Egypt, one of Hyginus 1 insulae, 394 ;
the gods of, 77 unknown to
early Delos, 402 invasion of
Delos by, 401 i. influence on
Aesculapius worship through
Serapis of, 254
Egyptians, their knowledge of herbs
in Homer, 231
Egyptian poet of Dionysiaca, 92 ;
doctors and Democedes, 224 ;
strain of Dionysus, 168 ; use of
rosettes, 251
ei/)a0tu&gt;T77S, Dionysus called, 166
Elagabalus, coins of, 41 ; his reign
a Nightmare of Religious Refor
mation, 260
Elements, Dionysus becomes the in
carnation of the, 90 ; wine, fire,
water, gold, and unusual bright
ness are the Dionysiac, 97, 92,
102 ; fusion through song and the
dance of the Dionysiac, 103
Eleusinion at Athens, the, 124, 207 f.
Eleusis, 165 , landscape and posi
tion of, SS&gt; 57, 187 f -&gt; 218;
Athens and, 60, 122, 208, 376 ;
account of monuments of, 7, j,
44, 60 f. , 186, 188-193, 797-207,
218, 379 ; chief points in the
legend of, jj, 57, 59-67, 63-63,
in, 779, 793- ; legend of, com
pared with others, 33, 50, 243 ;
compared (i. )with Icarian legends,
104, 107, 133 ; (ii. ) with Pelepon-
nesian legends, 65, 105 ; the
mysteries of, 4 f., 68, 76, 122,
180-182, 200 f. , 2ij f. , 376, 403 ;
the Holy Alliance of, 77, 776-
178, 211, 401 f. ; Aesculapius at,
2/9 ; Aphrodite near, 277, 273 \
Dionysus at, 97, 727, 125, 174-
777, 202 ; Eubouleus at, 776 ;
Hades at, 77^, 776 ; Persephone
Daeira at, 48
Eleutherae, Dionysus of, 34, 104,
in, 118-120, 143, 162 ; image
of Dionysus at Athens from the
temple at, 779
Elis, Aphrodite in, 277
Elysium, 75 f. , 87 f.
Emanations from Dionysus, Muses,
Hours, etc., as, 06
Emathia, the cradle of Philip s
power, 79 ; north of Olympus,
where was Mount Bermius and
the gardens of Midas, 79 ; har
boured myth of Dionysus, 79
INDEX
437
Emathia and Pieria, 87
Emathian conqueror, the great, 79
Emesa, Julia Domna, daughter of
priest at, 260
Emperius, places Satrachos at Pa-
phos, 346
Emperors of Rome, allegiance to
Venus-Aphrodite of, joo ; sanct
ity of Apollonius compared with
divinity of, 265 ; deification of,
rooted in previous habits of mind,
40 ; not work of clever men, 37,
40
Engel argues that Aphrodite was
Greek, 272, 315 f. ; is responsible
for adoption of Paphian Bocarus,
35 2
English occupation of Cyprus, 277,
279
Epacria, Plothea, Semachidae, and
Icaria, confederation of mount
aineers, 105, ng
Epacria, Icarian legend of the visit
of Dionysus to, 105, in
iTTOuvri, as an epithet of Persephone
in Iliad and Odyssey, 48
Ephesus, place for yearly assembly
of Acndpxcu, 44 ; founded by
Androcles, 122 ; privileges of
/3a&lt;nXets at, 122 ; Domitian s
death witnessed from, by Apollon
ius, 261
^TTi/SaTTjpia and eTrt/Scrnjpios, 13 f.
Epicureanism, a refuge, 41 ; first
master of Apollonius believed in,
2 51 I Apollonius rejected, 255 ;
Lucian biassed against Apollonius
by, 263
Epicurios, Apollo, father of Aescu
lapius, 2/9
Epidaurus, 2, 5, 243 ; journey to
Hieron of, 246 ; description of
Hieron at, 247 ; precinct of Aes
culapius near, 248-254 ; Tholos
of Polycletus at, 250-254 ; theatre
of Polycletus at, 246 f. ; in
scriptions describing miracles at,
237, 254 ; statue of Aphrodite
found at, 270, 273 ; legendary
claims of, 243 f. ; legend of, 2/9,
221, 233, 244 f. ; importance in
history of surgery and medicine of,
222, 237
Epimenides prepared Athens for
Solon s laws, 123, 131, 175 ; from
Phaestus near Cnossus, 124 ; the
Eleusinion and Lesser Mysteries
and, 124, 129 ; statue at Athens
of, 124, 208 ; Dionysus and, 127,
*75
Epione, Gentleheart, wife of Aescula
pius, 243, 249
Epirus, theatrical features in May
festivals of, 9
Episcopia of the Venetian Cornari,
2c?9
TTiTV/ji.pla, epithet of Aphrodite, 310
Epoptical Mysteries, the, time of,
208 f.
Eprius Marcellus, the career of,
43
Erechtheus killed in war with Eleusis,
122
Erichthonius, succeeded Amphictyon,
7/9
Erigone, legends and ritual concern
ing, 105, 107, 709 f., if 4 f., /JJ,
368
Erinys, epithet of Demeter, 176
Eros, painting of, in the Tholos, 253 \
Harpocrates, Apollo and, 401
Eryx, foundation of Aphrodite-temple
from, 286, 323
Euboean legends of Dionysus, 143,
i&lt;&gt;3
Eubouleus at Eleusis, 174, 170, 194
Eucharis, a purely Greek epithet of
Aphrodite, 298
Euhemerus, his views applied to
traditions of Mt. Meroe, 166
Eumaeus, character of, 47
I .umcnides, The, protest against
matriarchy in, 171
Eumolpidae, the Deliastae chosen
from the, 174, 176, 376
Eumolpus from Thrace, 174 ; father
of Immarados, 122 ; station of
the Mystae at the tomb of, 218 \
438
INDEX
cultivation of the vine and trees
by, 107 ; a son of Celeus, 63
Eunapius, testimony in favour of
Apollonius, 264
Euripides, general account of, as a
thinker and poet, 18 f. , 29, 71,
136, 138, 143, 149, 157, 159,
161 f. , 166 i. , 169-171, 178 ;
Aphrodite as represented by, 298-
300, 303 ; Apolline legends in,
35&gt; 35$&gt; 3^4 ; Dionysus-worship
and legends of, 81, 136, 142 f. ,
150 f. , i Si , the Tiresias of,
143 f. ; debt of Milton and Goethe
to, 146, 148, 150, 162
Eusebius, tribute to Apollonius,
263 f.
Euthydemus, Socrates thinks his
books are on medicine, 224
Evagoras and Conon, used forests
of Cyprus, 308
Evangel of Apollonius, Philostratus
called to write the, 259
Evangelistria, Tenian feast of the
Holy, 378, 389
Evariges, letter of Sidonius Apollin-
aris to, 265 f.
Evian god, the, Evoe to, 144
Evoe, 97, 144
Evolution, natural, of politics and
religion, 16, 19-21 , 53
Examples of Odysseus and Pandarus
an incentive to know medicine,
228
^oxcirare, "your excellence," was
the style of Greek doctors, 268
FAITH, required by Aesculapius,
*SS
Falsehood, divinities free from, 18;
Apollo could not touch, 369 f.
Famagosta-Salamis, history of ruins
at, 283
Family, change in, the Dionysus
birth-legend and, 163
Family-life, Demeter who sanctified
the bonds of, 72
Farmer s god, Dionysus the, 105,
217
Fast-day, Icarian observances like,
112
Fates, Aphrodite the eldest of the,
272 ; measure led by the glorious,
in yearly Eleusinia, 215
Father-god of Thracians in Cyprus,
322
Fatherhood, the duties of Apollo and
Zeus, 369
Fathers of the Christian Church, 3
Fawn skins, symbolise for Dionysus
the starry sky, 140, 142
Ferule, the, in Bacchic worship, 142
Festivals, Aegean and Apolline,
372-381, 386-388; Dionysiac,
106, 112-114, 128-130, 134
Fetichism and primitive religion, far
below Greek religion, 27
Fetich -stone or Baetylus, on Mt.
Cynthos, 386
Feuilletonist, Philostratus a Parisian,
260
Fig-man, Phytalus the, at Lakkia-
dae, 217
Fig-tree, in bas-relief of Dionysus
at the house of Icarius, 106
Filiiis dei, Aesculapius as, 240 f.
Finances the, of modern Cyprus,
278
Fir-tree, the, of Pentheus at Corinth,
Thraco - Phrygian dendrophoria,
*59
Fire, association of Dionysus with,
1 6, 62, 64, 78, 92 f. , 103, 133,
145, 149, 156, 158 f., 179 f.,
212, 245
Flames, personified by Agave and
Maenads, 137
Flamininus, deification of, 40
Flash of the elements of Dionysus,
92
Flattery, attributed to Greeks, 14
Fleet, the clay fleet of Cinyras, 293
Flesh, Dionysus an eater of raw, 96
Flowers, festival of, at Athens, 130
f. ; flowers of Greece inspired
Polycletus, 251, 253
Forests abounded in Cyprus, 308 ;
forests, Scandinavian, 6
INDEX
439
Fortification, Eleusis a, in early
days, 790, 198
Frari church in Venice, picture in,
of Cornari of Episcopia, 289
Freedmen, part assigned to, in
imperial services, J9
Frenzy, inspired by Dionysus, 100
Frogs, immense success of, due to
religious causes, 216
GAIA, j&lt;5, 64
Galignani, Simone, a Venetian pub
lisher, 331
Gamelion and Lenaeon, 132
Gardens, statue of Aphrodite in the,
at Athens, 277
Garin, Nicholas du Colos, at Colossi,
28S
Gebeleizis, a name for the primitive
Dionysus, 86
Genetor, the Cyclades are chosen
islands of Apollo, 393 ; Delian
altar of Apollo, j&gt;79, 382
Genii, of later Emperors, 38
Genius of Roman people, time-
honoured worship of, 40
Genoese, the, in Cyprus, 278
Geographical use of term Cyclades
under Rome, jgj
Geography, astronomy and mytho
logy and, confused in a Delian
legend, 358; Meursius idea of
ancient, 348
Geologists, on Cyprus, 275 f.
Gephyrismoi, gibes at Cephissus-
bridge, 218
Germans, the Great God of, 6
Gibes, used by lambe to diver
Demeter, 68
Glaucus, prayer of, 29
Goat, vine - destroying, slain by
Icarius, 108
Gold, significance of, in Diony
sus legends, 92, 97, 102, i.fo
178
Golgoi, perplexing connection with
Paphos, 28s
Gorgon s head, sent forth by drea
Persephone, 48
Gospels, Godhead of, 79 ; the life of
Apollonius and the, 25$
joths, overran Thrace and Illyria,
87 ; letter to the King of the,
26^ f -
otterineinanderleben, of the Olym
pians, 20
out, appeal of Diophantus for cure
of, to Aesculapius, 2.ff f.
}ozzoli, Benozzo, Pausias and, 253
Jraces, the, Dionysus and, 96, 104,
IJ5, 303
pcua, Demeter surnamed, 70
irasshoppers, invasion of Cyprus
by, 280 f.
Jravia, Odysseus danced the Syrtos
at, 400
recia (Magna), no proof of early
worship of Aesculapius in, 225 ;
Dionysus in, 186
reek religion, 21, 26, 29, 75 f.,
779, 210
ryaros, not of the Cyclades, 392 ; an
anchor of Delos, 361
HADEPHAGIA, Demeter, 57
Hades, the Eleusinian legend of,
58 f. , 69, 73, 7S, 9 8 I the Eleu
sinian worship of, 77, 176-178,
797, 218
Hadrian s gate at Eleusis, a bad
imitation, 790, 792
Hagnon deposed, and Brasidas put
in his place at Amphipolis, 41
Hair worn for Dionysus, 7JJ
Halicarnassus, 7
Hall of Cimon, the, at Eleusis, 799
Harpocrates, Horus, and Apollo on
Delos, 402
Harvest Queen, the, jo
home, Demeter and, 69
usages, Dionysus and, 217
Health (Hygieia), Panacea, Teles-
phorus (Convalescence), attend on
Aesculapius, 240
Heaven, kingdom on earth of, 13
Hecate sitting in her cave, j6, 759,
iSl
Helena, St. , legend of, in Cyprus, 275
440
INDEX
Helicon, placed on Parnassus by
Cervantes, 24 ; Thracian worship
of the Muses on, 103
Hellas, Eleusinian divinities at the
great crisis of, 211
Hellenic genius in religion met
Semitic in Cyprus, 273 ; ideal,
Apollo, Dionysus, and the, 162
Hellenism, effect on Aphrodite of,
273
Henry the Eighth, preface of Eras
mus addressed to, 260
Hephaestus fought for Greeks, 46
Hera set Titans on Zagreus, 128,
149, 167, 181 ; sent Pytho against
Leto on Delos, j&gt;j&lt;? ; borrowed
Aphrodite s cestus, 299
Heracles, 87, 371 f.
Heraclitus and Dionysus, 777, 779 f. ,
184
Hermes, 30, 114, 122, 372
Hermione, Demeter-legend of, 176
Hero physician, Athenian shrine of
the, 2j&gt;9 f.
Herod, 14
Heroes, the Homeric, fought hard
that we might think clearly, 229 ;
misprised Demeter s gifts, 46
Herophilus on the miraculous nature
of drugs, 2j&gt;7
Hierocles set Apollonius up against
Christ, 264
Hieron of Aesculapius, the, 244, 246
Hierophant in the Eleusinia, 209,
212, 2IJ
Hieroskipou is Strabo s iepoKrjiria,
290
Hill, holy, of Dionysus, 94
Hipparchus and Onomacritus, 727
Hippocrene on Parnassus, 24
History of the worship of Aphro
dite, 303 f.
Hittite strain discoverable in Aphro
dite, 282, 320-323
Hittites, the, in Cyprus, 280, 321-
323
Home, Demeter the goddess of, 69
Honey in legends of Dionysus, 108,
143
Hope, Demeter still had, 77
Horned Isle (Kerastia), poetic name
of Cyprus, 274
Horns, Delian altar of, 384 f.
Horse, cure at Delos of a, 254
Horse-racing at Delos, j&gt;77, 380
Horus, Apollo and Harpocrates,
402
Hospitallers, Knights, at Colossi,
288 ; on Delos, j&gt;79
Hospitals, the temples of Aescul
apius were not, 229 f.
Hostanes and Apollonius, 262
Hours, the, and Dionysus, 96
Humanity of Aesculapius, 239
Humility of Aesculapius, 242
Huns overran Thrace and Illyria, 87
Hunter, Dionysus a, 96, 101, 128,
160, 185
Huntress, Artemis the, at Epidaurus,
250
Huntsman, Dionysus the wild, 96,
707, 128, 160, 185
Hygieia, 220, 240
Hyperboreans at Delos, J79
IACCHAGOGOS, another name for the
Hierophant, 2/7
lacchos, 727 f. , ij 4 f. , ij8 f. , 210,
212-214
lambe, 68
lano, King of Cyprus, his ransom,
330
lasion, father of Plutus, 97
Icaria, (i) the Attic deme of, 5, 32,
36, 80, 101, 104-115, 117-119,
121, 129, 133, 368; (2) (Icaros
or Nicaria) the Island, in, 163
(see Italia)
Icarian legends and customs, 104-
115, 117-119, 123, 131 f. , 164,
208
Icarius, Si, 105, 107-11 i, 114 f. ,
135
Icaros (Icarus, Icaria, or Nicaria),
in, 163
Ictinus at Bassae, 204 ; at Eleusis
(Hall of Initiation), 191, 199 f.,
202-206
INDEX
441
Idalian fields, death of Adonis on,
291
Idalium, dependent on Chittim of
the Phoenicians, at, 282, 291,
3*1
Illyrian tribes and Thracians, 86 f.
Immarados of Eleusis, killed in war
with Athens, 122
Immigration, early Greek, into
Cyprus, 280
Immortality, ideas in the Mysteries
about, 176, 181, 211
Imperialism, Roman, fj-fj, 37-39,
43 t
Incubation in temples of Aesculapius,
236
India, political state of, 12
Indian Dionysus, a deification of
Alexander s conquests, 29
Indo-Caucasus, wine first cultivated
on, i6j
Initiation and the initiated at Eleusis,
176, 181, 189, 208 i., 218 i.
Ino, a reveller ofCithaeron, 147, 150
Inopus, Leto s travail on the banks
of the, 356
Inquisition, the Spanish, 8
Inscriptions, early Cypriote, Aphro
dite does not occur on, j2r f.
Inspiration of Dionysus, 29, 96 f. ,
102, 117, zjj, 220
Instruments used by doctors in days
of Democedes, 223
Insula, Hyginus 1 idea of, includes
Mauritania and Egypt, 394
Insularum provincia of Diocletian
called tirapxLa- vrjffuv KvK\d5uv
393
Intensity of Dionysus lacking in
Aesculapius, 220
Intolerance, Mohammedan, in
Thrace, 85
Ion colonised Cyclades as Apollo s
son, 391
Ionian festival at Delos, 372-374
Islands, May festivals of, 89
British rule of, 277
race, Apollo the father of, J79
382, 393
ophon, Antigone, 904 ff., interpo
lated by, 166
phigenia, love of, for Orestes, /jo ;
struggle for, and the couvade,
iji
ris, her fruitless message to Demeter,
57
shtar, Aphrodite and, 273, joo ;
and Demeter, 303 ; descent to
Urugal of, 30 f ; lament for Tam-
muz of, joo f.
[sis and Apollo at Delos, 402
Islands and peninsulas, confusion of,
in Homer, 392
tsmenus, the softly gliding, 133
Isolarii, Venetian books bearing title
of, 328-331
[srael, j, 18, 274
ttalia, read Icaria for, in Ant. 1119,
133
Ithaca, no wheat land, 47 , 377
Ivy-god, Apollo, 30 f.
Ivy and parsley, Mystae crowned
with, 217 ; branches for Bacchic
worship, 142
JACK-IN-THE-GREEN, Dionysus at
tached to himself the attributes
of a, 83
Japanese and Chinese drama, masks
in, 172
Jason, a pupil of Chiron, 232
jealousy of Aphrodite s Assyrian
nature, 298 ; prayer to Aphrodite
for deliverance from, joo
Jerusalem, Augustus offerings at, S ;
buildings at Paphos and buildings
at, jo6
Jews, religion of, 19 ; Moeragenes
maintains Dionysus is the god of
the, 106 ; Delos and the, J7J
Jordan, modern Delian legend of
the, jj6
Journalism, Apollonius the victim of,
261
Joy, mixture of, with sorrow, in
Demeter, 73
Julii, oaths In acta divi, 43
Julius, Jupiter, 37
442
INDEX
JuliaDomna, Philostratus, Romancer-
in-ordinary to, 258-260
Jupiter, philosophical supreme god,
15, 20, 26 ; Julius, 37
, 44
Kadapot, on Sybarite inscription,
176
Kerastia, a name of Cyprus, 345 f.
Kerykes, the Deliastae chosen from,
J7*
Kittim, the Phoenician Larnaca-
Citium, 28r
Kolossi, Garin de, at Colossi, 288
Kore in Orphic story, 181
Ki/JcXddwi tirapxla vyvuv, Diocle
tian s Insularum provincia, called
the, 303
LABYRINTH below the Epidaurian
Tholos, 253 f. ; Theseus in the
Cretan, 400
Lakkiadae, station of the Mystae at,
217
Lapethus, importance of, in North
Cyprus, 277
Lapithae, Aesculapius the tribal god
of, 221, 233 ; on the Epidaurian
temple of Aesculapius, 249
Lararium of Severus, Christ, Abra
ham, Orpheus, -Apollonius, and
emperors in the, 265
Lares Compitales and genius
Augusti, 38
Larnaca, early fcmndation at, by
Phoenicians, 281 ; fortified by
Knights Templars, 288
Lasus of Hermione detected Onoma-
critus, 727
Laughless stone at Eleusis, 60 f.
Laurel tree, Lord Bacchus, lover of
the, jo f. ; Leto and the, jj6,
j6j ; connection of Apollo through
Daphne with, 368
Layard, Sir Henry, de Mas Latrie s
dedication to, 278
Lazarus found a cross in Cyprus,
275
Lemnos, destruction of, predicted, 127
Lenae, biennial procession of, 132
Lenaea, the, and mid-winter festival
of Icaria, 132 ; first tragedy at
Athenian, 132
Lenaean Dionysus earlier than
Dionysus Eleuthereus, 118, 132
Lenaeon in Boeotia and Icaria,
112 f. , 132 ; Gamelion and, 132 ;
Brumalia in the season of, 112
Lenides, or Lenae, 132
Lepanto, the battle of, 331
Lepidus and the favour of Tiberius,
42
Lesbos, 14
Leto, traditions and character of,
355-358, 363, 370, 383 f.
Lightning, Apollo sent the, for sig
nal to Theoris, j&gt;77
Ligyon, Achilles, so named for not
taking mother s milk, 64
Liknites, lacchos surnamed, 128
Limassol, land at, for old Paphos,
2?5&gt; 2 $7
Limestone in Cyprus is friable, 288
f.
Lions, frieze of, on Aesculapius
Temple at Epidaurus, 248 ; on
cornice of the Epidaurian Tholos,
95*
Little-in-the-fields, Mr. Browning s
name for the rural Dionysia, 131
Lotus blossom, miraculous effect
of, 231
Lusignan, Hugues I. of, gave Col
ossi to Hospitallers, 288
Lusignans, feudalism of, in Cyprus,
278
Lusios, Dionysus called, f^o, 162
Lustrations of Delos, 362 f.
Lycian Patara, oracles of Apollo at,
370
Lycians in Cyprus, 279 f.
Lycorea, peak of Parnassus, 25
Lycurgus and Dionysus, story of,
77 ; a Thracian, 77 ; his hatchet,
77
Lydian airs, and the musical es
capade of Cinyras, 294
Lydias, Dionysus and the, 757
INDEX
443
Lyre, Apollo s, lent to Dionysus, 31 ;
Apollo and Hermes invented the,
372 ; seven strings of Apollo s,
359
Lysander, deification of, 41
MACEDONIA, 79, 86 f. , 737, 22r,
379, 386 f.
Machaon, son of Aesculapius, 222,
230
Macris, Mysa, daughter of Aris-
taeus, nurse of Dionysus, 143
Madeira, restocked with vines from
Cyprus, 288
Madness, Dionysus - worship and,
no, 120, 141, 145, 147, i6r f.
Maenads, in legends and worship of
Dionysus, 31 , 79, 100, 112, 128,
I 37&lt; f 39&lt; *4 f &gt; f J5&gt; T 50&lt; 138-160
181, 184 f.
Maera, in the Old Attic Icarian
legend, 709-7/7, 77,/
Magdalene, St. Mary, in Cyprus,
2J5
Magicians, Apollonius among the,
262
Magnes of Icaria, 777
Maidenswell at Eleusis, 60 f.
Malta, ruins on, and Paphian ruins,
306
Mandra, a sheepfold in Cyprus,
often a cave, 289
Manwrecker, Dionysus, surnamed,
100
Maps of Cyprus, modern, 274
Maps, neglect by Meursius of avail
able, Jj-7
Marathon, mountains near, early
Thracians settled on, 77 f. , 80,
soj ; journey from, to Icaria over
comes Dionysus, 106 ; the wilder
ness of, if 4 ; the Deliastae at,
376 ; Delion at, 376 ; daisies grow
on the field of, 252
Marathonian tetrapolis, the worship
of Apollo from, 104
Marathus of Phoenicia, the Snail s
Tower at, and the south wing at
Paphos, 308, 314
Marco (San), title of Cavaliere di,
350
Mardonius, devastated the Hall of
Pisistratus, 79^
Maron, wine given by, 97
Marpessa and Apollo, 368
Marriage of Dionysus and Ariadne,
130 ; of Dionysus and Basilissa,
130 f. ; of Dionysus and Perse
phone, ij8 ; of the doge and the
sea, 7j7.
Masks, Japanese and Chinese, use of,
in plays, 172 ; use of, in tragedy,
a barbaric survival, 172
MacrroeiS^s.Strabo s epithet of, proves
his Olympus was Troodos, j2j
Plater dolorosa, Demeter as, 77
Matriarchy, protest of Apollo
against, 777
Mauritania, one of Hyginus" insu-
lae, 394
Mavrocordato, Alex., was a doctor
of Padua, 268
Maximus of Aegae wrote of, and
shared, ascetic life of Apollonius,
*S7 I
May-day festival, ancient, at Icaria,
772 ; at modern Corfu, 89
Mayor of Thebes, a doctor, 267
Measure, Attic sense of, in Diony
sus-worship, /Of, 77j&gt;
Medea had knowledge of miracu
lous drugs, 231 ; Aphrodite as
represented in the, 300
Media worships Dionysus, 140
Mediaeval church, laws of purifica
tion in, 360 ; churches, ruins of,
in Cyprus, 283
Mediation, final requirement of, by
Aesculapius, 254, 256
Medicine (Greek) early (i.) begin
nings of, 223-225 (ii.) practical
bearings of Homeric, 228 f. (Hi. )
positive and mythical aspects of,
232-234; later perfection of, (i.)
sacred, 222, 226, 230, 232, 237
f. (ii.) secular, 223-22^, 229 f.,
234 f. , 238 f. ; modern Greek,
study of, 222, 268
444
INDEX
Meeting-house at Eleusis, and in
Thrace, for Dionysus -worship,
i8g
Megara, and Icaria, relations of, to
early comedy, 115
Meilichius, Dionysus surnamed, 101
Melanaigis, Dionysus, seen by
daughters of Eleuther, 120 ;
Dionysus, madness sent by, 120,
133
Meleager, a pupil of Chiron, 232
Mell supper, 5
Melpomene, an emanation from
Dionysus Melpomenos of Eleu-
therae, 104
Melpomenos, surname of Dionysus,
the god of song and dance, 104
Memphis, 14
Meroe, thigh mountain, and second
birth of Dionysus, 765"
/j.r)poTpa(pris, Dionysus called, 166
Mesorea, or mid-mountain of Cy
prus, 275-277 ; devastation of,
1 33 9
Messianic vision of Euripides in
The Bacchanals, 138
Metagenes of Xypeta, builder of
Eleusinian temple, 191, 204
Metanira, legends of, 62, 65, 68,
107
Metapontum, story of Parmeniscus
of, 383
Methe, painted by Pausias in the
Tholos, 253
Meursius, John, his life and work,
324, 344, 353, 347-351
Midas, Dionysus, and the legends
of, 79, 87, 92 f., 204
Milton s debt to Euripides, 148,
150
Mimallones, the Thracian originals
of Bacchanals, 97
Mining invented by Cinyras, 294
Miracles inscribed at Epidaurus, 254;
wrought by Aesculapius, 234, 237
f. , 245 ; of Apollonius, sanctioned
by Aesculapius, .257
wine a perpetual source of, 97
of Dionysus, 143, 149, 153
Miraculous drugs in Homer, moly,
nepenthe, lotus-blossom, 231
Mnesicles, Propylaea of, imitated at
Eleusis, 790
Mocenigo, Isolario of Benedetto
dedicated to, 330
Moeragenes, maintained that Diony
sus was the god of the Jews, 186 ;
a bandit of the Taurus, 258 ; the
Athenian ? told of Apollonius
life, 258
Moesa, and her two daughters, of
Julia Domna s clique, 259
Moliere, farce made of Democedes
story, 224
Moly, Herophilus on drugs com
pared with Homer s account of,
237 : 238
Monastery of St. Nicholas, on Cape
Curias, 288
Monks, the destroyers of Eleusis
were, 188
Monotheism, of Greek religion, 10
Morality, the Bacchanals, 7J7
Mortality of Aesculapius, his mortal
schooling, 231, 232
Moscow MSS. of hymns to Demeter
and Dionysus, 163
Moses and Apollonius as magicians,
262
Mother Rye, Demeter as, 51
Motion, of the elements of Diony
sus, 92
Mountaineer-festivals, two Icarian,
772 f.
Mourning for Dionysus, especially
in Icaria, 96 f. , 772 t.
Musaeus, Onomacritus falsified, 727
Musagetes, surname of Apollo, the
god of song and dance, 104
Muses, the worship of, with Apollo
and Dionysus, 25, 31, 78, 96,
102-104, SJ5 *59
Music, relation of instruments of, to
Dionysus, 143 f.
at the Delia, 380
Musical contest of Apollo and Ciny
ras, 29^
Mustafa, at the sack of Nicosia, 332
INDEX
445
Mycenae vases, rosettes on, 231
Myconos and Delos, 330, 363, 376,
Mylitta and Aphrodite - Urania,
208
Myron, arraignment of Alcmaeonidae
by, 124
Mystae, yearly procession from
Athens to Eleusis of, 212-218
Mysteries, the Eleusinian or Greater,
122, 123, 14 f, 173 f., 180-180,
207 - 210, 218 f. ; the Lesser at
the Athenian Eleusinion, 124 f.,
127 ; the Samothracian, 403
Mystery, ancient and modern mean
ing of, 178
Mystes and Epoptes, degrees of,
Mythology, j, 4, 7; era of conscious
analysis ; in, 78; (Greek) con
trasted with philosophy and
theology, 32 ; the critic of, must
not offend the poet, 28
Myths (Greek), their relation to
fetichism, 27 ; lives of Christian
saints and late pagan, 263 ; the
beautiful, of early Attica, 71, 104-
112
NAIADS, give not wine but water,
108 ; torch-led dance of, 88 (see
Fire and Maenads)
Narcissus, the, in myth of Perse
phone, 36
Nature - worship in Greece, 73,
136 f. ; personifications of, 7^ ,
97 ; theory of, at the bottom of
Eleusinian and Dionysiac worship,
140, 178-180, 182-183 ; Aescula
pius and, 220 ; Aphrodite and,
271, 273
Nauplia, road from, to the Hieron of
Aesculapius, 244
Nausicaa, compared to the Delian
palm-tree, 333
Naxia, Tintoretto painted Acropolis
of, in his Bacchus and Ariadne,
328
Naxos, Delian Apollo and, 363, 376,
380, 400 ; Dionysus, legends of,
Si, in, ijo, 163
veuKopia, competition for, .//
Neocorion at Eleusis, the, 797
vfUKopos, finally removed from
meaning temple-sweeper, 44
Nepenthe, Helen s, stands for curing
mind through body, 234 f.
Nero, the foe of mankind, 42 \
manner of his birth, 42 ; probably
gave the Icarian sculptures to the
Athenian stage, //./ ; as Apollo
in the flesh, 114
Nestor, high esteem of doctors felt
by, 222 ; a pupil of Chiron, 232 ;
wounding and fall of horse of,
Netherworld-god, Aesculapius like
Dionysus a, 220
New York, Varoschia, Famagosta,
Salamis, and, 283
Nicaria (Icaros or Icaria), an
Aegean island .where Dionysus
was born, 163 \ Draconus, a pro
montory on, 163
Nicholas, St.. a monastery on Cape
Curias, 288
Nicias at Delos,. 378-381 ; endow
ment of prayers by, 380
Nicosia, cathedral of, built by
Knights Templars, 288; Venetians
banished to, 326 ; siege and sack
of, 332-334
Nile, connected with the Delian
Inopus, 336 ; the. Cypriote Pedi-
aeus and the, 276
I Niniveh, Aphrodite-Ishtar at, 303 ;
poem on Ishtar found at, 301 ;
Adonis of Amathus and the Tam-
muz-Adonis of, 20.2
Ninivite, Damis the, told credulous
tales of Apollonius travels,
237 f-
Niobids, Apollo and Artemis pursue,
North Cyprus, an elegant extract
from Asia Minor, 277
North range of Cyprus, age of,
446
INDEX
Northern origin of Aesculapius and
gods at Eleusis, 220 f.
Northumberland, Demeter s coun
terpart in, 49 f.
Notables, connection with imperial
worship of provincial meetings of,
43*.
Notre Dame de Bon Secours, Aphro
dite Sosandra as, 298
Novices, the Eleusinian, 182, 208
Nymphs and naiads, 78, 94
Nysa, curious legends of, 78, 134,
143, 163-166, 168
OAK, branches for Bacchic worship,
142
Oath, doctors , by Apollo, Aescula
pius, etc., 220
Oaths, " In acta divi Augusti " and
" divi Julii," 43
Oceanus, Persephone seized near,
5*
Oceanus, Eleusis son of, 64
Octavius, an, of the Emperor s Gens,
14
Odysseus, the domain of, no wheat-
land, 47 ; streams poured for the
dead by, 97, 94 ; anatomical
knowledge of, 228 ; Chiron s in
struction of, 232 ; the ship
wrecked, 273
Odysseus of Gravia, a modern
Leonidas, 400
Oil contrasted with wine, 108
Oliveto, Pius II. describes Monte,
326
Olympia, 9 f. ; 271, 372
Olympian Zeus, capitals of Athenian
temple of, 252 ; mildness of, in
Aesculapius, 220
Olympus of the gods, jj, 20, 26, 28,
57, 777, 240,371 ; of Thrace and
Macedonia, 20, 87 , ijj ; of
Cyprus, an investigation of its
whereabouts, 324-343
Omadios, Dionysus surnamed, 101
Omestes, Dionysus surnamed, 101
Omnipotence, not chiefly repre
hended by Greeks in Christian
ideal, 20 ; Greek gods had local,
10
Onomacritus, 125-127, 174 f.,
181
oiraiov of Eleusinian temple, 797
Opposites, Demeter a curious ming
ling of, 73
Oracles, 34-36, 06, 238, 255
Oreads, Dionysus and the, 06
Orestes, Iphigenia s love for, 750 ;
justified by the principle of Diony
sus second birth, 169 f.
Orgies of Dionysus, 34, 154 ; of
Demeter, 63
Orientation of temples, facts about
the, 192
Origen, read four books of Moera-
genes on Apollonius, 238, 264
Oropus, discoveries about Amphi-
araus at, 232
Orpheotelestae, the, iSr
Orpheus, Thracian tradition of, 9,
IO J&gt; *57&gt; 2 ^2 ; in the Lararium
of Severus, 263
Orphic doctrines and myths, 25, 87,
125, 127, 178, 181
Ortygia and Asteria, barren legend
f . 350, 35S
Ostrogoths at Eleusis, 188
Otherness, equivalent to reality in
Thracian conception of Dionysus
and his world, 90
Otherworlds of Iliad and Odyssey,
49
Ovid, his lowly setting of the stay of
Demeter with Celeus, 71
PACTOLUS, Dionysus bade Midas
wash in floods of, 92, 178
Paean Apollo, the sun-god, father
of Aesculapius, 231, 241 f.
Pagans, it is best to make tolerable
sense of the affairs of, 19 ; criti
cism of the solitary Christian
god by, 20 ; testimony for Apol
lonius of, 264 f.
Paganism, 3, 7 ; last days of, 21,
45, 258, 261, 266
Palaia, a town between Larnaca and
INDEX
447
Limassol not next to Olympus,
3 2 5
Palm tree and laurel of Leto at
Delos, 356, 363, 380
Palm tree in bas-relief of Dionysus
at the house of Icarius, 106
Pammerope, daughter of Celeus, 63
Pan, distinguished from Satyr, 99 ;
personifies cruelty of Dionysus, 99
Panacea named in doctors oath,
220 ; attends on Aesculapius, 240
Panas, Dr., of the Paris faculty,
269
Pandarus, ignorance of anatomy
punished in, 228
Pandemos, Aphrodite, shrine of,
near Asclepieium at Athens, 270 ;
Mylitta represented by, 298
Pandion, dealings with Thracians of
king, in ; the fifth king since
Cecrops is, 705 ; Demeter came
to Eleusis under king, 7/9 ; Attic
Dionysus-legends and king, 779
Panic terrors inspired of Dionysus
and his Pans, 99
Pans, or Aegipans, 98-100
Papticapaeum, men of, at Delos,
JS?
IId0i/a, i], later Aphrodite, repre
sented by, 321
Paphian Aphrodite, distinguished
from the Syrian Goddess on Delos,
403 , cone of, and Delian Bae-
tylus, 386 ; Aphrodite at Tegea
and, 285
Paphos (new), 283
(old), 2, 5 ; history of the
temple and worship of Aphrodite
at, 2J2, 279, 281 f. , 284 f. ,
289-291, 293, 295-297. 304-308,
ji 2 f. , 324, 345 f.
Parian Marble, Susarion and the,
777 ; Aristotle s Constitution of
Athens and the, 132 ; fixes the
date of the first tragedy at Athens,
I3 2
Parisian feuilletonist, Philostratus a,
260
Parmeniscus at Delos, story of, 382
Parnassus, description of, 23-25,
33&lt; 3. f 33 . Dionysus and
winter festivals on the, 77.2 f. ,
132 f. , 149, 156 f. ; Apollo and
Dionysus on the, 104 ; Daulis on
the, 777
Paros, Archilochus and, 365 ; Delos
and, 365, 376
Parsley and ivy, Mystae crowned
with, .277
Paspati, Dr., a well-known author,
269
Passion, the, 4 ; in the Dionysus-
legend, 153-157, 181
Passion- Play of Attica, The Baccha
nals called, 7J7
Patara, winter oracles of Apollo at,
37?
Patriarchy, in the primitive family,
770
Patrician worship of Eleusis, Icarian
Dionysus added to the, 208
Patroos, Apollo, altar at Delos of,
379&gt; 3& 2 I tne Cyclacles are
chosen isles of Apollo, 393
Paul, St., Simon Magus, Apollonius
and, 258, 260
Pausias, paintings of, in the Tholos,
252 L
Pauson, compared unfavourably with
Polygnotus, 252
Peasant, the Greek, of to-day and
his taste in wine, 706 ; the
Cypriote, 335, 341 ; admiration
for doctors of the Greek, 222
Pediaeus, the, a Cypriote river Nile,
275. 35 f
Pegasus, of Eleutherae, j&gt;./, i2O\ on
Parnassus, 24
Pelasgians, Thracians identified
with, 220
Peleus, the fire-baptism of Achilles
and, 64; a pupil of Chiron,
232
Peloponnesian \V;ir, Greek religion
stood intact until time of, 136 ;
state of Greece after the, ir
Peninsulas and islands, confusion of,
in Homer s day, 392
448
INDEX
Pentelicus, home of Dionysus near,
104 f.
Pentheus, Dionysus flies to Icarius
from, 107 ; the frenzy of Zagreus-
Dionysus and, 139 ; in The Bac
chanals of Euripides, 145-160
Pericles, and the temple at Eleusis,
187
Persephone, earliest and forbidding
conception of, 47-49, 128 ; later
myth of (post-Homeric), 50, 54
f-, 57-59 &gt; t&gt;9&lt; 75 *" ; general
religious and moral aspects of the
divinity of, 48, 69, 73-75, 213 ;
significance at Eleusis of, 73 f.,
77, 144, 176, 178, 218 ; lacchos
and, 174 ; Kore, a name of
(Orphic), 181 ; Adonis plays the
part of, 297 ; tie between Aescu
lapius and, 219 f. ; Erigone con
fused with, 107 ; Zagreus the son
of, 128 ; monuments and rites
concerning, 59 f. , 70, 194-196,
213
Persia, Democedes led captive to,
224
Persian order, the, 12, 17
Persians, destruction of the Eleu-
sinian Hall by the, 198 ; inter
ference with Eleusinian procession
from Athens by the, 211
Personification, implications in pri
mitive mind of, 78
Pfingstl, killing of the, compared to
Pentheus death, 759
Phaedra calls Aphrodite Cypris
Pontia, 297
Phaedrus, stage built by, at Athens,
114
Phaedryades, rocks at Delphi, 23
Phaestus, near Cnossus, Epimenides
of, 124
Pharsalia, watchword of, 300 ;
Dante remembered Lucan s, 24
Phidias, Plutarch would leave super
vision of Eleusis-buildings to, 191
Philip, Dionysus and the house of,
79. J 3$
Philip, portico at Delos of, 379
Philippi, inscription found near, 87 \
Dionysus hill near, 92
Philo, porch of, at Eleusis, 790 f.
Philonides named CyprusAcamantis,
274
Philosophers, Apollonius among the
illustrious, 263 f.
Philosophy, mythology and theology
contrasted with, 32
Philostratus, Apollonius not the play
acting personage of, 261 f. , 264
Phlegyae and Lapithae, Aesculapius
tribal god of, 221 , 233
Phlegyas, visit of, to Epidaurus, 243
Phoebus, 35 f. ; leader in the dance,
29
Phoenicians, name of Dionysus from,
85 ; Dionysus as a child of the
thigh came with the, 163-165,
168 ; Moesa, Julia Domna, and
Ulpian were by descent, 25-9 ;
Aphrodite a goddess of the, 277,
286, 323 ; Atargatis on Delos
worshipped by the, 403 ; Cabiri
brought by the, 402 ; Delos and
the, 374 ; Cyprus and the, 279,
281-284, 319, 321 ; Old Paphos
of Cyprus and the, 281, 284 f.,
306, 308 ; Hittites confused with
the, 322 f. ; Selinus and the, 306
Phrygians, cousins of Thracians, 85,
90, 103 ; Dionysus and the, 77 ,
90, 95, 103, 140, 164, 178;
Adonis and the, 291 ; Cinyras and
the, 294 ; Cybele and the, 97,
143 ; Rhea of Crete and Cybele
of the, 143
Phye, Thracian girl named, 126
Phyllis betrayed by Demophoon, 65
Phytalus entertained Demeter at
Lakkiadae, 217
Pieria, a centre of Dionysus -wor
ship, 87, 137, 153 ; spirits of
waters the nurses of Dionysus in,
94 ; Icaria an Attic, in
Pieris, a centre of Dionysus-worship,
87, 92, 94
Pindar remoulds story of Tantalus,
18 ; transcends idea of a resistless
INDEX
and unrelenting God, 79 ;
in nobility of religious thought,
29 ; solemn aspect of Aphrodite s
charm seen by, 299 f. ; his ac
count of Cinyras as Apollo s and
Aphrodite s friend, 292, 29.;,
299 f. ; account of Parnassus and
deluge by, 25 ; birth legend of
Aesculapius keeps him in Thes-
saly, 245 f. ; his pious preludes,
102 ; praises of Delos by, 364
Pine-tree dedicated to Dionysus,
rob ; Pentheus, perched in a, 150,
138 f.
Pirates carried off Dionysus, 168
Pirithous or Apollo, in the Olym
pian pediment, 9
Piscopia of the Venetian Cornari,
2c?9
Pisistratidae, 727
Pisistratus, Solon s censure and
acting of, if 6, 126; Dionysus-
legend and worship developed
by, 125-132, 137, 175 ; second
exile of, 126, 137 ; lustration of
Delos by, 362 ; tillers of the soil
befriended by, 126 ; Eleusinian
Hall of, igS f. , 204
Pissouri, brighter landscape near,
2&lt;?9
Pius II. translates Strabo on
Cyprus, 326
Planets, Dionysus and the, 133
Plataea, 77
Plato, arguments about Gods of, iS
f . ; on the "Streamers," 779;
Aphrodite Urania of, 298 ; pro
test against the poets of, 26 ;
leader in nobility of religious
thought, 29
Pleiades, Alcyone of, 779
Plothea of Epacria, 105, 779
Pluto, Dionysus brought the epithet
to Hades at Eleusis, 174, 777 f. ;
precinct of, in Eleusinian sanc
tuary, 103-105 ; of eight Eleu
sinian divinities, 178
Pluto, daughter of Oceanus and
Tethys, 08
Pluto, or Plutus, 97
Plutus, nature of his divinity like
Dionysus , 97 f.
Plutus, Demeter s son, 97
Podalirius, son of Aesculapius, in
fallible in Homer, 230
Podocathari, fortunes of the family
of, 331 f. , 336-340
Podocatharo, Giouanni, his loyalty
to king lano, 336 \ Hettore, 330-
333&lt; 33S-34 2
Cardinal Ludovico, collections
of, jji
Pietro, under the re bas-
tardo," reward of, 336 f.
Poetic inspiration, 702
Poet, Plato s prohibition to the, 18;
Apollo as conceived by the, 25,
33 ; inconsistency demanded in
any treatment of Dionysus by the,
136 ; critics of Greek mythology
must not offend the, 28 ; Dante
the poet s, 33 ; Eleusis and the,
182 ; religion and the, 38, 136
Poetry, Greek mythology and tilt-
abstract spirit of, 28 ; Greek re
ligion is the poetry of, 33 ; Icaria
influenced the history of, /// ;
Apollo and Dionysus, the two
gods of dancing, song, and, 104
Politics, ancient and modern, 10,
15
Pollux, a pupil of Chiron, 2j2
Polycletus, the elder and the
younger, 246 f. ; the Tholos of,
at Epidaurus, 250-254 ; theatre
built by, at Epidaurus, 276
Polycrates, called Democedes, from
Athens, 22^ ; gave Rhenea to
Apollo, 361 f. , 376
Polygnotus, Pauson, compared un
favourably with, 252
Polyphemus, clever wounding of,
228
Polytheism, 3, 70, 20
Polyxenus, a son of Celeus, 63
Pomegranate-seed, in myth of Per
sephone, 58
\\ovr apxn^ //
2 G
450
INDEX
Pontia, Cypris, Phaedra s name for
Aphrodite, 207
Porch, used for stoa or porticus,
2j6, 248, 310
Porches, for the sick in Aesculapian
sanctuaries, 247 f. ; need of, at
Paphos, jio
Portulani, in the Marcian library,
and the Museo Correr, j2q
Poseidon, Delos and Delphi be
longed tO, J2, 37 f. , JjS
father of Aithousa, the mother
of Eleuther, ng
and Apollo walled Troy,
37 2
father of Persephone, 48
Possession, by Dionysus, o, no,
133 ; the whole play of The Bac
chanals a case of, ij6
Prayer to Dionysus, 133
Prayers, endowment of, at Delos,
j8o ; to Aesculapius, Apollo
named first in, 220
Preceptorery, older name for com-
mandery, 288
Prehistoric man in Greek art, 173 ;
tribe changes, and second birth
of Dionysus, 163 (see Primitive)
Prescriptions of Aesculapius given
in dreams, 2jj
Priests, of Aesculapius, 2jo, 234 f. ,
241 ; cleverness of Delphian, 30 ;
Delphian, sanctioned brotherhood
of Apollo and Dionysus, 31 ; of
old Paphos descend from Cinyras,
201
Primitive belief, in personification,
78 ; custom, survives in tragic
masks, 172 ; Dionysus, confusion
about, oo ; family, 160-171 ; man,
12 ; medicine, Chiron and, 232 ;
worship, 106, 13?, 105, 203
Probation, Dionysus before he came
to Athens underwent a triple,
Si
Procession to Eleusis, many local
customs connected with, 218 ; of
the Mystae from Aristophanes
Frogs, 212-216
Processional ways at Athens, Delos,
and Eleusis, 103, jyg
Proclus, an Athenian friend of Aes
culapius, 256
Prophecy, coupled with wine, 03
Prophet, divine, Dionysus a, 78
Prophets of Dionysus, the Baccha
nals are, ij6 f.
Propitiation of Dionysus, 134
of Eleusinian gods, desire for,
at Athens in 405 B.C., 215 f.
Propylaea, Athenian, 307 ; Eleusin
ian, 186
Proserpina, rape of, localised in
Sicily, 62 (see Persephone)
Provindemiator, star in the Icarian
legend, in
Prudentilla, the heiress, wife of
Apuleius, 262
Prussia, East and West, 6
Psophis, Phoenician foundations at,
285 i. t 323
Ptolemy, Cos and, likened to Apollo
and Delos, 304 ; Theocritus
praises, 318
(the geographer), place of
Cypriote Olympus according to,
3*7
Public doctors and ancient hospitals,
229
Punch and Judy show, Greek
counterpart of, go
Purification, days of, at Athens before
the Eleusinia, 209 f. ; at Delos,
jjj ; Milton s lines upon, 360
Purifying powers of Dionysus, 133
Purity, requirement of, by Aescu
lapius, 23 j, 2jj ; ideal of Apollo
and Delos, jjj, 360-363, 370
Pygmalion and Cinyras, kinship of,
204 ; sculpture invented by,
204
Pyrasus of Demeter, 47, 221
Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans,
72, 21 Si., 223, 257, 382
Pythian monster slain, j&gt;j ; Apollo s
expiation for slaying the, 371 ;
sent by Hera against Leto, 358
Pythoness, description of the, 36
INDEX
QUAKER-MEETING, and first tragic
actor of Thespis, 7/7
Quintilian, Tacitus, and Pliny, rever
ence for the imperial idea felt by,
4 ri.
Quiver, votive gift at Delos of a
leaden, 384
RANSOM of Christians from Turkish
captivity, jjjf., 339
Rapendosa, the valley of, at Icaria,
705, 109, 114
Rarian plain, the, 55 f., 66, 187,
207
Reality of Thracian Dionysus-world,
9
Reason, inapplicable to the gods,
146 ; difficulties of, in Dionysus-
legend, 148
Religion, primitive, relation to Greek
myths of, 27 ; Cyprus a meeting-
ground of many a, 27 7
(Greek) relentlessness of early
phases of, 35 ; is the poetry of
poetry, jj ; was unshaken until
the Peloponnesian war, 136 ;
Athenian innovations in, 729 f. ;
harmony of Greek medicine and,
226, 230
Resurrection, and the offering of a
cock to Aesculapius, 239
Retzinato, Dionysus overcome by,
106
Revels, the night-long, of Dionysus,
140
Rhea, Demeter s mother, jo, 57 ; of
the eight Eleusinian divinities,
/7&lt;?, 401 ; a Cretan Cybele, 143
Rhenea, Delos and, 360-362, 376,
394
Rhodes, Telchines of, 97 ; Colossus
of, 287 f. ; neither of Cyclades
nor of Sporades, 303
Ribaldry of Eleusinia, connected
with lacchos-worship, 214
Right living, Pythagorean rules of,
72 ; Demeter s rules of, 71 f.
Roman Brumalia and Rosalia, 86-
8S (see Rosalia)
Roman Church, 15, 21
hall at Eleusis, 20 f, 203
- Aesculapia, distinction be
tween Greek and, 221, 254
Romanticists compared with classi
cists, /jo
Rome, 3, j, 7 f. , 10, 13 ; and
Augustus, worship of, 40, 45 ;
temples to the emperor discouraged
at, 38 ; Cyprus under, 278
Rosalia, Roman and Thracian festi
val of, 86-88 ; centres of, in
Macedonia and Thrace, 87 ; sur
vival of, 87-90 ; and Brumalia
compared with Icarian festivals,
112
Rose-gardens of Midas in Thrace,
02
Rosettes, history of, as ornaments, 25-7
Rotunda (Tholos) of Polycletus at
Epidaurus, 246 f. , 250-254
Rustica work at Old Paphos, 308
SABAE, of Thrace and Phrygia, 06
Sabazius, a name for the primitive
Dionysus, 86 ; and the Sabae,
06 ; Thracian and Phrygian idea
of, 77, 103
Sacred lake, the, in the Delian
legend of Leto, 356
Sacred and secular medicine, dis
tinction between, 232, 237
Sahara, mountains of Cyprus and of
the, 276
Sailors, votive inscription to Apollo
of, 384
Saints, lives of Christian, and late
Pagan myths, 21, 265
Saisara, daughter of Celeus (Pam-
phos), 6j
Salamis, 12 ; Mount Acamas on,
187,344; Blaeuw s description of,
346 f. ; Cychreus and, 64, j./t
f. ; Bocarus, a river on, 324,
j/./; of Cyprus, 283, J.//-J-/6.
Samos, not of Cyclades or Sporades,
303 ; Democedes called by Poly-
crates to, 224 ; sack of, by IVrs-
452
INDEX
ians, 224 ; Prince Carathe odori
of, 268
Samosata, Lucian of, a Voltaire, 262
Sanctuaries, Greek, 2 f. , j", 7 ; Chris
tian, 2, 4 i. ; Aphrodite at all
Greek, 271
Sappho, invocation of, to Aphrodite,
29S
Sardanapalus (Assurbanipal), poem
on Ishtar found in palace of, joo
Sarmatians, the, overran Thrace and
Illyria, 87
Sathalia, tempestuous gulf of, 275
Satrachus and Bocarus, 345 f.
Satrae, the indomitable, 84
Satyr -friend of mystic maids, 88
(see Maenads)
Satyr- play, the Icarian, 132
Satyrs, half beasts and half men, 78
and Sileni, companions of
Dionysus, 94, 99, 106, 128
Saviour-god, Dionysus the, 134
Savoy, Democedes career paralleled
at the court of, 224
Science has its place in nature of
Chiron, 232
compatible with superstition in
worship of Aesculapius, 234
and religion, harmony of, in
Greek medicine, 226, 238
debt to Homeric fighting of,
229
Sculpture, skill of Pygmalion in, 294
Scythian superstition, Hippocrates
on a gross, 238
Sea, the sound of, in forests, 6 ; part
in Greek worship played by, 210 ;
power of, to purify, 210 ; Diony
sus leaps into, 77
Seasons attend Dionysus, 78, 96
Secular and sacred medicine, dis
tinction between, 232, 237
Seefeld, library of, looted by Charles
X. of Sweden, 350
o"/7/cos, 6 /j.vffTiK6s, fSg
Selinus, pierced stones at, and
piercings at Old Paphos, 306
Semachidae, Dionysus - legend of,
105, 119
Semachus, legend of Dionysus
coming to visit, 105, 119
Semele, Theban place of death of,
140 ; Dionysus and, 140-142,
163, 7-77, 181 ; Pentheus and,
148, 154 ; Dione and, 318
Semitic, Aphrodite s decisive traits
are, 272 f. , 280
Senate decrees honours to Julius
Caesar, 37, 40
Serapis, 3 ; priests of Aesculapius
and, 254 ; Delian Apollo and,
402
Seriphos on the way to Delos, 376
Serpent impostures of Alexander of
Abonotichus, 254 ; Zeus in form
of, 181
Serpents, part played by, in miracles
of Aesculapius, 235, 253 f.
Sestrachus or Satrachus, a river at
Old Paphos, 346
Severus, Alexander, Julia Domna s
great-nephew, 265
Sheep-folds are often in Cypriote
caves, 289
Sicilian life, Aphrodite at centres of,
271*
Sicily, Greeks in, worshipped De-
meter, 51 ; myth of Proserpina
localised in, 62
Sicyon, connection of, with tragedy
overstated, 115
Sidon, Cadmus of, and Pentheus,
147 ; Aphrodite Ashtaroth at,
303 ; Cadmus of, brings eastern
tinge into Theban Dionysus
story, 164 ; sent gifts to Delian
Apollo, 387 ; early intercourse of,
with Cyprus, 281
Sight, use of terms of, to describe
the Mysteries, 209
Silence, at Eleusis, 180 - 182 ;
Pausanias warned to keep, about
Eleusinia, 218
Sileni, innumerable, and Satyrs the
mates of Dionysus, 94, 97
Silenus, old, the type of things that
flow, 78, 93-93&gt; 9 8
Silvius, Aeneas, 326 f.
INDEX
453
Simon Magus, Apollonius ami Paul
from the same quarter, 260
Sisyphus, shadowy punishment of,
76
Slave-market, Delos a, 375, 401
Snow, revellers above Delphi blocked
by, nj
Socrates, loftier teachings of, in The
Bacchanals, 138 ; meaning of his
dying words, 239 ; might not die
while Athens was consecrate to
Delian Apollo, 362
Solomon s temple and the Paphian
ruin, 306, 313 f.
Solon and Epimenides, 122 f., 175
and the tragedy of Thespis,
116, 123, 126
Son of God, Aesculapius described
as the, 240
Song and dance in Dionysus-wor
ship, 102-104
Sophism, the, of Sophocles, 166 f. ;
the, of Tiresias in The Baccha
nals, 149
Sophocles, the Tiresias of, 145,
148*.
Dionysus the tutelary god
of, 81
sophism of, 166 f. ; Icarian
notion of Dionysus simpler
than his, in
Sorcery, Apuleius in his own de
fence on the charge of, 262
Soroe, Meursius at, 348 f.
Sosandra Aphrodite at Athens,
271, 208, 300
Sotera, Athene, and Pisistratus,
126
Soudan, Nysa in the Troglodytic
country beyond the, 165
Soumali-country, is the country of
the cinnamon, 165
Sparta, interference at Eleusis under
Cleomenes, 216
Spenser, anatomy of, compared
with Homer s, 228
Sphekia, a name of Cyprus, j./j f.
Sphettus, prayer of Diophantus of
Sphettus, 241
Spintharus, of Corinth, built Ivl-
phian temple, 31
Sporades, the, 30 1 -398
Spring, celebration of, return of
Dionysus in, 112 f. ; gibes in
celebration of, 213
Stadion at the Apollonia and Delia,
388
Stage, Athenian, built by Nero and
by Phaedrus, //./
Stars, fawn - skins symbolise the
heaven flecked with, 140
Statius, linked Icaria and Eleusis,
707 ; tells of Erigone s wander
ings, TI4
Stavrovuni, Mount, Santa Croce, or
Delia Croce, 325
Stockholm, MSS. of Meursius used
by Graevius, j&gt;j/
Stoicism, a refuge, 41
Stoics, practically believed in many
gods, 20
Strabo, antiquity of Meineke s mis-
punctuation of, xiv. p. 683, 325-
327
Strymon, of Orphic fame, and
1 ieris, 87 ; Pisistratus in exile
near the, 13 j
Styx, mother of Persephone, 79
Sublime, in Euripides, Gothe on the,
162
Suicide, epidemic - mania for, of
Icarian maidens, no ; epidemics
of, in modern times, no
Sultan, Colossi, appropriated by the,
288
Sun-god, the source of knowledge of
miraculous drugs is the, 231
Sunium, on way to Delos from
Athens, 376
Surgeon, Democedes qualified at
Croton as a, 225
Surgery, Homeric skill in, came
down to professional doctors,
224 ; necessity of warfare tin-
mother of invention of, 226 ; at
Epidaurus, 237 ; knowing- of.
upon which Hippocrates dn-w.
223 ; sprang from positive practi-
2 G 2
454
INDEX
cal tendency in early medicine,
2JS, 237
Surgical operations inspired by
Aesculapius, 226, 237
Susarion, comedy, his great in
vention, ii 4 f. , 7/7
Suttee, Thracian, custom analogous
to, 84
Swans, song of, at Apollo s birth,
3S9,
Sybaris, inscription from a tomb at,
176
Syra has one part of ancient Delian
glory, j&gt;&lt;?9
Aphrodite drifted to Paphos
from, 296
Syrian traits in Aphrodite, 297
goddess, worship on Delos,
of the, 403
Syriote peasant dances in carnival,
388
Syros and Delos, 365, 376
Syrtos, the modern peasant -dance
called the, 400
TABLE mountains, of Cyprus and
the Sahara, 276
Taboos, account of, in the Golden
Bough, 360
Tacitus, reverence of, for the imperial
idea, 41 f.
Tammuz- Adonis, plays part of
Dionysus and Persephone, 291 ;
lament for, 300 f. ; temple at
Amathus of, 292
Tantalus, Pindar remoulds the storv
of, r8 ; punishment of, 76
Tar in Cypriote wine, 288
Tarsus, Apollonius removed from
Aegae to, 257
Taurus mountains of Asia Minor,
northern range of Cyprus parallel
to, 258, 275
Taxes, the, levied to-day in Cyprus,
277
Tegea, temple of Paphian goddess
at, 28s f -
Telamon, a pupil of Chiron, 232
Telchines, 97
Telesphorus (Convalescence) attends
on Aesculapius, 240
Telesterion, Hall of Initiation at
Eleusis, iSg
Tellus the Athenian, death and
burial of, at Eleusis, 122
Tempests, stilled by a nail of the
True Cross, 275
Templars, Knights, in Cyprus, 288,
341
Tenedos, 101
Teniote festivals and modern shrine,
375, 389
Ten os, Aeolus housed on, 380 ; of
Poseidon, 358 ; Delos and, j6j,
376
Tetrapolis, Marathonian, worship of
Apollo from, 104
Theatres, Aesculapian shrines built
near, 247
Theban Maenads, ministers of earth
quake, i4S
legend of Dionysus and Eastern
stories, 164
Thebes to be decked as a Maenad,
142 ; the mother of Bacchanals,
133 ; Dionysus-driven women of, in
The Bacchanals, 139 ; Dionysus
connection with, 76, 139, 141, 144
Thelpusa, Demeter legend of, 176
Themistocles, //
Theocracy of Roman Empire, 8, 26
Theologians, Homer and Hesiod the
first of Greece, 26
Theology, mythology and philo
sophy contrasted with, 20, 52
Theoris, the Delian boat of Athens,
376 f.
Theory sent by Deliastae from
Athens, 376
Thera and the Cyclades, 397
Theseum and temple of Delian
Apollo, 387
Theseus, Demophoon the son of,
6j ; the altar of Zeus and, 217 ;
Chiron s pupil, 232 ; Theoris and,
377 ; Ariadne at Delos and, 382 ;
Athenian and Delian legends of,
400
INDEX
455
I hcsinoi of Deineter, 51
Thesmophoria, the, 51 , 6S
Thesmos, the self-imposed, of
Apollo, 370 f.
Thespis, 115-117, 126, ij2, 137,
f 39
Thcssaly, myth of Persephone wan
dering from, J9 ; Demeter from,
194, 221 ; Aesculapian legends of,
22 f, 234, 2.fS f-
Thetis, her attempted fire-baptism of
Achilles, 64 ; proteeted the fleeing
Dionysus, 77
Thiasos, 100 ; blessings of belonging
to, 141
Thief, discovery of the cross of the
penitent, 275
Thigh-mountain, second birth of
Dionysus and, 165
Tholos, the, of Polycletus at Epi-
daurus, 250-254
Thornton, Dr., competed for build
ing the Capitol, 267
Thrace, Dionysus from, 77, 86, 90,
103, 119, 121, 174, 189, 218 ;
Dionysus in, 85 f. , 88, go, 92-04,
06, 174 ; Phrygia included in the
larger, 84, oo ; chronic disturb
ances of, &lt;$j ; Valerius found three
silver statues and strange rites in,
87 ; Eumolpus from, 174, 218 ;
Pisistratus exiled to, 126, 137 ;
Zerynthian Aphrodite in, 345 f.
Thracian elements in the legend
and worship of Dionysus, So, 82-
85, 94, 96 f., / 00-104, 106, 135,
138, 162, 177 ; Brumalia and
Rosalia, 86-88 ; oracle on Mt.
Zilmissus, 93 ; places of assembly,
94 ; history in early days, So,
III f. , 221
Thracians, history of the, So, 84,
86, 103, Iff, 220 f., 280, 322 ;
character of the, 84-90 ; religion
of the, So f., 83-87, oo, os, 103,
106, 322 ; the Delian Hyperbor
eans were, 379
Thraco-Eleusinian, Eumolpus the,
122
Thraco - Phrygian features in all
Dionysus-legends from the East,
169
Thrasymedes, statue of Aesculapius
by, 249
Thriasian plain, 55 f. , 187
Thucydides, unknown sense of the
term Cyclades \n, 392,394 ; semi-
Thracian parentage of, 84
Thyades, with Dionysus on Delphian
pediment, 31, 133 ; Thyone-
Semele and Dione, 318
Thyone-Semele and Dione, 318
Tiber, temple of Aesculapius on the
island in, 2.//
Tiberius, 42 f.
Tintoretto painted Naxia-acropolis,
328
Tiresias, 145-148, 166 f.
Titans, Zagreus and the, 128, 131,
i8r
Tithorea, peak of Parnassus, 25
Titian, a masterpiece of, 289
Titthion, Aesculapius exposed on
mount, 243, 245 f.
Tityi, 94
Tmolus, Dionysus born on, 154
Tolerance, Apollo s sense of, 8, 29, 33
Tragedy, Icarian legends and, ///,
115-117 ; rise of Athenian, 132,
134-136, 159, 172; Dionysus and,
7S
Tree-worship, 78, 82 f., 106 f., no,
143, 159, 164
Triaconter, the Theoris a, ^77
Tricca, Inscriptions at, 237
Trinity, mystery of, compared with
Eleusinian mystery, 178
Triopian promontory, Cnidian sanct
uary on, 70
Tripod, 371 ; a symbol of unison of
Apollo and Dionysus, 35 f.
Tripoli, the country of, in the sack
of Nicosia, 332
Triptolemus, a son of Celeus, 63 ; a
son of Icarius, 707 ; Icarius and,
707 ; an EU-usiniun demigod, 6j
f. ; suppression of, in Eleusinian
legend, 64-66, 175, 194 , Rarian
456
INDEX
plain and, 66, 71, 201 ; Demeter s
representative, 67, 124, 206 ; one
of the gods at Eleusis, 178 f.
Troezen, meaning of Bocarus in
dialect of, 344
Troglodytic country, Nysa in the,
it&gt;5
Trohodos, used by the villani for
Olympus, 341
Troodos, 276, 324 ; tradition iden
tifying Olympus with, 327-343
Strabo s epithet for Olympus
exactly suits, 323
Trophonius, Parmeniscus and the
oracle of, 382
Trullo, council of, order against the
Rosalia at the, 89
Truthfulness of Apollo conspicuous
at Delphi, 370
Trygaeus, had to be initiated before
he died, 181
TVfjij3opvxos, epithet of Aphrodite, 310
Turk, mimic fight of, with a Chris
tian, 90
Turkish bondholders and modern
Cyprus, 278
Turks besiege and sack Nicosia,
332-334 ; Brenzone s hatred of,
332 ; ransoms of Christians from,
jjj f. , 339 ; their laws and taxes
in Cyprus, 277 ; population of,
in modern Cyprus, 272 ; special
causes for prominence of Greek
doctors under the, 267
Tyana, saved from destruction by
Apollonius, 265
Tyre, Aphrodite-Ashtaroth at, 303
Tyre and Sidon, early intercourse
of, with Cyprus, 281 ; sent gifts
to Delos, 381
uXdrr;?, epithet of Apollo at Curium,
345 *
Ulpian, of Phoenician descent and
of Julia Domna s clique, 259
Ulrichs, Professor, votive inscription
found at Delos by, 384
Unction (extreme), initiation into
the Mysteries compared to, 181
Unity, of Demeter and Persephone
is unity of growth at large, 74 ;
of god -doctrine of Xenophanes
and of the Mysteries, 180
Urania, transformation in meaning
of epithet, 297 f.
Urugal, Ishtar s descent to, 301
VALERIUS, in Thrace, 87
Varoschia, Salamis-Famagosta and,
283
Vegetation, Dionysus god of abun
dant, 78
Venetian rule in Cyprus, 278, 289
Venetians and marriage of doge
with the sea, 131
Venice and Greeks, religions of,
131, 135, 328, 389
Venus, 87, 300, 304
Vespasian, reported miracle of, 41 f. ;
the greatest latter-day guide, 42
Viaticum, 181
Victory, statues of, on Epidaurian
temple, 249
Vilaras of Janina, a poet and a
doctor, 268
Vindemiator, Bootes-Icarius as, in
Vine, the he-goat and the, 108 ;
cultivation of the, and Dionysus,
107
Vintage, autumn Dionysus festivals
of the, 129 f.
Virgil, Messianic vision of, 138 ;
supposed bust of, 193 ; the mother
Venus of his song, 304
Virgin Mary, the, 4, 71
Virgo, bright star e near wrist of, is
frovindemiator, in ; Erigone
and the, no
Volcanic origin of Delos, jjg
WARFARE in Homer, debt of
modern science to, 228 f.
Water, given with barley to Deme
ter, 68 ; wine tempered with, at
Eleutherae, 34, 120 ; in Hera-
clitus doctrine and Dionysus -
worship, 179 f. ; in legend and
worship of Dionysus and his
INDEX
457
creatures, 78, 94 f. , 102 f., 108,
f37 5 6 &gt; J J9
\\ ine, regarded as an element, 97
f. , 103 ; first culture of, /6jr ;
Phoenician trade in, and Diony
sus, j6j ; brought by Dionysus
to Icaria, 78, 107-109, 152 f. ;
power over the dead of, 97 ; pro
phetic power of, oj ; represents
the power of Dionysus, 97 ;
Eleutherae and the use of, 34,
1 20 ; power over poets of, 102 ;
the story of Midas and the, oj ;
Cypriote, 288 ; Pramnian given
by Maron, 97
Winged Dionysus, the, 779
Winter, death of Dionysus, grief
of Demeter in, iSj ; Icarian
observances in, 112 f. ; other
Dionysiac festivals in, 132, 156
Winter-oracles of Apollo at Patara,
370
Wodin, 6
Wood, Pentheus, like a king of the,
XANTHIAS and Dionysus, witness
the march of the Mystae, 212
Xenagoras, named Cyprus Cerastis,
Aspelia, and Amathusia, 274
Xenocles of Cholargia, builder of
Eleusinian oiralov, 797
Xenophanes, Demeter stands for the
idea of divinity of, 779 f.
Xenophon nearly contemporary
with Hippocrates, 225 ; military
medicine and, 225 ; Philostratus
imitated passages from, 259
Xerxes, Onomacritus and Pisistra-
tidae at the court of, 127
6ava, attributed to Daedalus, J99
Xypeta, Metagenes of, at Eleusis,
797
ZAGREUS, the myth of, jo, 127 f. ;
at the Anthesteria, 7j7 ; the
mystical Sal/uaov of Eleusis and,
77^ ; the doctrine of immortality
and, 181 ; the pitiless huntsman,
185
Zamacola, on the couvade, 770
Zamolxis, a name for the primitive
Dionysus, 86
Zerynthian, epithet of Aphrodite
from Thrace, j/j f.
Zeus, character of, 12-14, 2 &gt; 2 #&gt;
2f&lt;? f., 2j6, 264, 277, j6g ;
monuments connected with the
worship of, 9 f. , 14-17, 277, 252,
402 ; Aphrodite-legend and, 277
f. , 284, J7J f. ; Asterinand, 358;
Aesculapius and, 2fo, 239 ;
Demeter-legend and, 48, jo, 36
f. ; Delphi and the eagles of, 31 ;
Dionysus legend and, 22, 142 f. ,
163 , Zagreus-Dionysus and, 128
181
Zilmissus, oracle on Mount, oj
Zoroaster and Apollonius as magi
cians, 262
Zoster, birth-legend of Apollo and
Artemis transferred to, 399
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